How much wasted food could be saved?

For anyone who has ever wondered what we do with our leftover breads and pastries, Panera actually has a strong priority to donate them to charities.

If you know anyone who is willing to pick up the donations, your local Panera Bread will be happy to bag up the extras and send them along for good use.

My own mother picks up all of the bread and bagels at the end of the night and takes them to a soup kitchen in West Baltimore. I actually went down to that soup kitchen once and the people who come in could not be more grateful for the donations.


The topic of wasted food though is an interesting discussion point. JB of the WASTED FOOD blog wondered exactly what we do with our leftovers. The real question though, is how can we reduce the amount of extra food that is made throughout the day.

It is more common than not that we will have to remake or change a completed order during our shifts. This means that the food we already prepared will get thrown away because the Health Department states that we cannot change food and hand it back over the counter.

My friend from work passed along this story about a remade salad:

Apparently, one of our trainers was teaching her trainee how to make the Greek salad a woman had just ordered. The woman came down and watched the trainer, who was standing by the salad station to makes sure it was being made properly. When the salad was practically completed, the woman decided that because the trainer was talking AROUND the station, she had spat in the salad.

In reality, the notion was ridiculous, as most people do not spit across a station when they talk.

The employees, however, were forced to remake the salad because the woman refused to believe this trainer had not spat in it.


This is the perfect example of wasted food. We had to throw away the contents of the first salad because it had received a complaint. We had no choice.

I am begging you as a customer to double-check your receipt after your order is completed or to ask the cashier to repeat your order.

This will reduce you having to bring something back, us having to throw it away and waste food, retrospectively causing food costs to go up because we have wasted to so much food because of stupid mistakes.

Panera is expensive enough people, let's not make it worse.

If you notice a problem, bring it up early. PLEASE don't just stand there and watch, THEN complain. That sounds pretty absurd... doesn't it??

You wouldn't curse in front of your family, so don't do it to me.

I think my most unforgettable Panera experience happened 2 years ago on a busy summer day. I was mainly a cashier at that time, so my job was direct interaction with customers at all times (this is why after 1 1/2 years I eventually got moved to crispanis and salads.)

An older man, probably about 60, came up and ordered two sandwiches like this:

"I'll take 2 chicken salad sandwiches. I'll have the first one on (pause) multi grain bread.

Me: With everything sir?

Him: Yes, with everything, and ya know, you can just put the second sandwich on wheat."

Keep in mind Panera still has two wheat breads: Whole grain(formally the multi grain) and honey wheat.

Maybe it was stupid to assume that after ordering one sandwich on multi grain and the second on "wheat" that he was referring to the same bread.

I was HORRIBLY wrong.

After reading his receipt two minutes later, he comes running back to me, interrupts the customer I was with and asks "WHAT THE HELL?? I said I wanted my second sandwich on wheat!"

I was still confused, so I told him both were on wheat. He looks at as though he is going to literally slap me and says "What could possibly make you think that I wanted two sandwiches on th same bread??"

Dumbstruck. I go get my manager and as I walked away to tell the sandwich maker the adjustments, the man looks at my male manager and say "It is just like B****es to screw it up. My wife is just like that."

My manager was pretty disturbed and just gave the man his sandwiches, said "she is one of our best employees" and asked him to leave.

Since that day I have never assumed Whole grain and honey wheat were the same thing.

But seriously, was the cussing necessary? No. We will ask you to leave.

Know Your Allergies...that is definitely not my job.

Panera recently enacted a policy that says that managers must make a customer's food from products that haven't touched any other food...IF the customer states they have an allergy.

Apparently, there were two separate incidents in different restaurants where customers complained because they got allergic reactions after telling cashiers they were allergic to something in their order.

Since then, corporate management has been seriously cracking down on making sure that we do not hear of such complaints again.

I have absolutely no problem with this; if a person is allergic to something, I do not want to be the person that causes them a crazy health crisis.

I will do the right thing and change my gloves, get new food and get on with the rest of my orders.

The real problem comes when people yell at us because they "don't want nuts in their food" when nuts were clearly listed as an ingredient on the menu.

Of course we will remake your food, but check the menu carefully of you are severely allergic to something.

We actually have nutrition guides under the cashiers that have every ingredient in every food item listed. All you, the customer, has to do it ask to check an item and we'll give it to you.

I get a little upset when I see a man throw a sandwich back at my co-worker and complain that we should say that is allergen was in it on the menu.

There are so many allergens in the world, listing each one would be impossible.

If your not sure (I will repeat this...) JUST ASK.

How many extra dressings does a person REALLY need?

What most customers don't understand is that Panera Bread employees bake the baguettes ourselves, are constantly running back and forth to stock our stations with cheese, meat, and vegetables and most importantly, we have to portion out our own salad dressings.

Every shift a salad person comes in, they are usually forced to spend an hour plus making dressings to prepare for "the rushes."

We don't do this because we think that we won't have enough for all of our orders, we do it becaus customers are continuously asking for extra dressings.

Here is another story to illustrate why it is annoying when customers ask for extra, extra items with their orders:

Sunday night, I worked a 3 p.m. until close shift, and the person who worked the morning shift left my station stocked with dressings. Knowing that I would get some customers that would ask for extra dressings, I worked until about 4 o'clock filling every extra inch of my workspace with these dressings.

Sure enough, a woman came in around 4:30 and ordered a Fuji Apple Chicken salad and a Asian Sesame Chicken salad, both with extra dressing.

After checking through her order, the woman went back to the cashiers to ask for more dressings...not just Fuji and Asian dressings, but 2 Caesars and 4 Balsamic vinaigrettes, which come with completely different salads.

It was probably the most blatant case of taking advantage of free dressings I had ever seen.

It is because of cases like this that facilities such as Panera are eventually going to be forced to charge 30 cents a dressing.

My advice: Seriously don't take more than you need for the salad you buy. You are eventually going to ruin this for yourself and other customers.

The complaint is not giving one, even two dressing for a full salad, but do you seriously need 6?

Just something to think about.

Definitely Don't Yell At Us If Its Not Our Fault

I'm going to start this first entry off with a little work story....

I went into Panera early last Thursday morning to set up the salad station because the lunch rush is always pretty busy in the afternoons. I was actually in a pretty great mood when I got there because I was working with two people I actually enjoy. So I got stocked up, made extra to-go dressings and waited for the rush to hit.

It came around 11 a.m. when about 12 college students came in for their daily bowl of Broccoli Cheddar soup.

During this time, a woman came in to order our brand new Chipolte Chicken sandwich, a spicy sandwich with chicken strips, bacon, cheddar cheese, tomato and this really spicy sauce. Then the thing goes on the grill for about 2 minutes.

I got all 12 orders going, but I had my co-worker John make this Chipotle sandwich first because it went on the grill.

During that 2 minute grill time, I started putting out finished orders... and probably finished at least 5 or 6 during that time.

To my dismay, I look over and there is a woman in scrubs glaring at me like I had killed her children. I mean, this woman was angry, and she was waiting for me to look at her.

I asked her if I could help her (which I think she took as rude because her snarl became even more defined) and she angrily replied that she wanted her money back.

I asked why... and her answer?

"I ordered my sandwich (Ahh... the one that takes 2 mins to grill?) and you have put 5 other orders out before mine. Its absolutely ridiculous. I want to speak to a manager. I want my sandwich now and I will never come back."

Yes, screaming at me because I left her sandwich on for the full 2 minute duration and continued to help other customers rather than stare aimlessly at her sandwich while the cheese melted.

She went to my manager and proceeded to inform him of my incompetence for well, doing my job.

Needless to say, it ruined the rest of my shift and I definitely in turn was less friendly to the rest of the customers.



So the lesson here is this: if you're having a bad day, don't take it out on us. Retrospectively, we may end up spreading that bad mood to someone else and that is not fair to them.

Keep in mind that if you order a "grilled" sandwich, well, it doesn't grill in 5 seconds, and no, I will not look at it and ignore other customers.

If you do not have time to wait, order something else.

Common courtesy is really easy people, make sure that that your argument is worthwhile before you choose to ruin someone's day.