Panera Bread is on the steady decline

Question

From worker dissatisfaction to consumer complaints to dwindling quality to dangerous products, here are the signs that Panera might not be around much longer.

Comments

I agree that this seems to be more of an opinion piece based on customers dissatisfaction with the quality of Panera. Additionally, Panera's recent issue with their charged lemonade causing two people to die has also contributed to a decline in their sales. One of the points made in this article talks about the lack of power outlets in their seated areas which seems to be irrelevant in regards to why people would not want to go to Panera. I believe if the food is satisfactory then power outlets are not a concern.

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"While the article raises concerns about Panera's future based on various factors, it's essential to critically evaluate the truth  of each claim. For instance, worker dissatisfaction and consumer complaints can be indicative of underlying issues, but it's crucial to delve deeper into the specific reasons behind these basics and assess their potential impact on the company's longevity, and how they hint at a potential decline. Additionally, exploring Panera's response strategies and any initiatives aimed at addressing these challenges could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the situation."These are very vague reasons and seems that there is no concrete evidence to back it up.

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While further investigating that article it very much seems more opinion-based rather than facts. I would be beneficial to try to research more on the subject then just rely on this article in particular.

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The article attached to the fact check seems more opinionated than factual. This is all based on their own personal experiences that they have had with the company.

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I agree that the article appears to be more of an opinion piece centered on consumers' complaints about Panera's quality. Sales have also decreased as a result of Panera's recent problems with their charged lemonade, which resulted in the deaths of two individuals. One of the arguments raised in this article concerns the absence of power outlets in the seating areas, although it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the reasons why customers wouldn't want to visit Panera. I don't think power outlets are an issue if the meal is good.

Answer 1

After reviewing the link there really isn't any main claim facts that would say yes, Panera is on the downturn on any traceable fronts. The only thing you find is customer reviews and then their corporate website, as well as multiple "Mashed" links which I don't find to be a known credible source. Not to mention the writer is nowhere to be found on LinkedIn which I would think someone in their career would be established digitally.

It claims current news but really the only valid point they made was about the dangerous product(s) which was a charged lemonade they launched recently that had serious health issues with. The Washington Post covered it well:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/12/06/panera-caffeine-lawsuits-deaths-risks/

Apart from that which is not the claim, this seems to be speculated with loose gatherings of evidence which was then posted. I looked for any evidence other than the dangerous product they had a real legal issue with, and I couldn't find any legitimate sources saying they are closing multiple locations or downsizing, because they still have a massive portfolio of restaurants. The one thing that may be accurate, is the 17% layoffs before going public to boost immediate profitability in the market.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/12/05/panera-stock-was-a-100-bagger-in-2017-again-2024/

The headline aligns with the article, but it just seems liked it is tailing the Charged Lemonade Incidences which have thus been discontinued. No doubt this is written with bias, because it makes it seem like they know the restaurant will disappear and is still largely a speculation. Switching management, discontinuation of products, and layoffs are a common practice of countless businesses, so I think it is just more of an opinion than anything. I wouldn't agree that these can all be labeled as "Signs Panera won't be around much longer"

In my personal opinion: We all remember when Chipotle had E.Coli docked in their health code. McDonalds coffee gave a customer 3rd Degree Burns, And Subway had a registered sex offender as their spokesman forcing an entire rebrand. Under no source I claim that Panera will or will not stay around, but I think this will be swept under the rug that is Big Fast Food/Service Industry.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/fed-meeting-interest-rate-decision-fomc-november-2023/card/exclusive-panera-laying-off-17-of-corporate-staff-as-it-eyes-ipo-pVjbHlTHqwhhr1vzE3A5

Comments

I agree with your assessment that the original claim can't be true or false; it is simply opinion. While we are entitled to our opinion, it can be dangerous to spread baseless information. While it is concrete fact that illnesses were borne from the "killer" lemonade, there is no scientific evidence that shows the lemonade is exclusively at fault.

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I appreciate your thoroughness in looking into the specifics of the author who generated the original content and assessment of their credibility. I like that you put the claim into the larger context of food business related catastrophes in the past, however, supporting these claims with more sources to make your own argument and credibility stronger would benefit your assessment even further. Thanks!

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Thank you for your detailed response. I also could not find any legitamate sources that showed data supporting this decline or closing of any panara locations. it seems that it was purely opinion based on if they liked the food or not. Including the information about the charged lemonade and the issues surrounding that just supports the fact checking more because it shows what the real issue was with panera and how it has already been solved.

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Great analysis! I like that you looked into the author of the mashed article and were able to find the author to be most likely illegitimate. I also like that you noted one of the articles to be biased.

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I agree with you that this can't be proven as true or false. I too could not find any information about a decline in Panera sales or closing of stores from legitimate sources. I liked how you went in-depth on your research about the individual sources, Great work!

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I think this was a very thorough fact check. You referenced the writer of the original article and how they seem to not be a professional journalist, which I think is important when fact-checking. I also appreciated all the links to other articles you included to help provide context for this claim. I thought your closing paragraph was an interesting way of wrapping your fact check up--it's true that a lot of other fast food companies have suffered scandals and recovered from them. Observations like that can help mitigate the claims made in Mashed's article.

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I agree with your evaluation of this claim. This was a very thorough fact check with great background on the information. You did a great job analyzing the headlines of the articles. It is also very insightful that you included your own personal perspective.

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This was a great breakdown of this fact check and I agree that it was a very opinionated claim. They had no backup evidence and it was important you showed how the source was illegitimate. Going into depth on each source was also key to showing how it was an invalid claim. Overall a great fact check!

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I agree that the claim is opinionated. It's great that you included information on the original source's writer's background. Also, the additional information on recent negatives that could potentially relate to the claim was a nice touch. And I agree, other companies have had scandals before but are still operating today. The same would go for Panera since there isn't any other factor that would prove otherwise.

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Great job on your response. I really appreciate all the detail you added to your answer. I thought this made for a credible and well-written fact check. I thought this was a more difficult statement to fact-check because there was limited sources but you did very well.

Answer 2

After reading this article it is clear to me that is strictly filled with opinions. The "sources" that are cited are simply Reddit and TripAdvisor posts. For example this Reddit post, "Panera has gotten far, far away from what it was", cited in the article, is an opinion. Maybe others think Panera is on the steady rise versus the steady decline. I also found a few Indeed posts on what it is like to work at Panera, again all opinion-based. The article states that Panera is headed towards becoming an "IPO" (initial public offering) which seems to be true when I did some outside research and stumbled across sources such as CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Axios, and others stating the same.

Sources; https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/01/panera-bread-ipo-filing.html AND https://www.axios.com/2023/12/01/panera-2024-ipo-brigade AND https://finance.yahoo.com/video/ipo-market-watch-panera-shein-161346916.html AND https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Panera-Bread/reviews

Comments

I agree with your conclusion on this fact-check. The sources that the article used are not evidence to any actual decline in Panera's sales or popularity. It's only on observation on what customers opinions on the restaurant have been recently. I'm curious as to why the sources talking about Panera becoming IPO is relevant to the claim of the article?

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I do agree that this claim is misleading but I would also say that it is neither true nor false just because this is based on opinion. Something that I would include within your post is the more detail on why the IPO would impact the decline of Panera. The article does include that with the transitioning to IPO the amount of employees are declining. Overall this is a good answer and I appreciate that you double checked the transitioning to an IPO across multiple sources.

https://www.mashed.com/1501216/signs-panera-wont-be-around-much-longer/

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I agree with your conclusion that this claim is not a fact and just an opinion that was made. After clicking on the source used by the original comment it is clear that all of these are more so opinions made by customers or staff that there is not even any proof of. None of this information even includes statistics or data which is the most important part of knowing where a business stands.

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I would agree with you in the fact that this claim is misleading. It seems to me that it was not based on any fact rather it was an opinion that somebody proceeded to comment and post out for the public to see. There is really no statistics or numerical data that this claim can be based off of, therefore I would safely say it is false until it can be proven to be otherwise, that would need to be done with facts.

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I agree with your fact check. The claim is exaggerated and you provided very helpful sources for this answer. I appreciate how you cited all the opinion sources.

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I agree that this piece is an opinion piece. The claim is very exaggerated and the sources you provided helped make this very clear.

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I agree that this is misleading I can see based on the sources that you have collected. Their is a difference between opinions and facts and you went to look for the proof of it.

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I agree because honestly I don't think this claim can really be fact checked. It is purely subjective and opinion based. I think if there were actual statistics in the decline of sales and better places to find these than reddit or yelp, it would be easier to back up or dispute.

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I agree with your conclusion! Your fact check did a very good job of analyzing the original poster's sources and determining their validity. It does seem that most of their sources are purely based on opinions.

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When you say that this assertion is deceptive, I would have to agree. I get the impression that it was someone's view that they decided to comment on and share with the world, rather than anything that was founded on truth. This assertion truly cannot be supported by any statistics or numerical data, therefore unless it is demonstrated differently—which would need factual evidence—I would assume it is untrue.

Answer 3

Panera is not simply what it used to be as a chain bakery- fast food restaurant. Recently there has been a rapid decline in the quality of their foods and baked goods and their prices have sparked up. The website the Daily Dot explains that the Tiktoker Matt Epstein, investigated Panera Bread, and noticed that he ordered a chicken bowl for $15 and it had barely anything in it. One of Epstein's main complaints is that Panera Bread just isn't the same place it used to be. Back in the day the lines were short, the quality of food was better and the prices were lower. Matt's study of the Panera Bread restaurant proved that this place is surely on the decline and probably won't be around much longer.

 https://www.dailydot.com/news/why-did-panera-quality-go-down/

Comments

I think it's a stretch to call one Tiktoker's review a "study." The things he states seem to be purely opinion or details too vague to be proven or disproven. The original claim is already a bit vague, and relying on standards such as "better" is a sign of such a flaw. Ad Fontes Media makes me question the reliability of your source, and for that reason, I think it would be a good idea to use a few more sources. This way, you can cross reference them and prevent relying on one voice's bias.

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Is DailyDot a reputable source? More sources with the same assessment would make this a stronger fact-check (assuming they are reputable).

Answer 4

After reading the article, both the article itself and main claim seem to be more opinioned based than anything else. While I was researching to find specfic evidence on this claim I found a few things. Firstly, I noticed that the Mashed article is not the only publication to bring up this idea around Panera Bread's seemingly decline. For example, Braden Bjella of The Daily Dot also researched on this topic at hand discussing a customer's claim in the downward quality of the resturants food and other concerns. This ultimately shows that despite this being an opinionated claim, there may be a universal thought on this as well. 

https://www.dailydot.com/news/why-did-panera-quality-go-down/

Comments

I agree that this claim appears to be more of an opinion than a fact or misinformation. I think you could have maybe done a better job at finding articles that supported the claim or disagreed with the claim itself. Is Mashed or The Daily Dot good sources?

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I would agree that this claim is as opinionated as Panera Bread's business may be declining, but that doesn't prove that the reason is because of the "dangerous food" or that it will be permanently shut down due to this.  With that being said, is there any other evidence that might disprove this claim or help reinstate that it is an opinion piece instead of a spread of misinformation?

Answer 5

After reading the article, you can tell a lot of claims are based in opinions and nonreliable sources. Sources are from Reddit posts and online reviews, no actual news or economical sources. That being said there are lots of cases and controversies surrounding their charged lemonade harming their customers. It is a fair assumption that after all of the issues they have had in the last year, they would have some business decline. That being said, the claim is a bit overblown and misleading. There are many articles questioning the possible decline in Panera but none with very strong sources.

Other sources, even news ones, have similar articles based on social media posts.

https://www.today.com/food/news/panera-menu-change-2023-rcna103008

Comments

While I agree with your claim and appreciate your mentioning of the Charged Lemonade controversy, I feel as if you could have possibly found a bit more solid evidence. Lots of financial information is able to be found online, such as stock prices. Investment backgrounds and consumer indexes can often be really valid forms of research to either debunk or validate claims such as this.

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Thank you for your factcheck. I also found that many of the quotes used for evidence in these articles were just from reddit and other opinion based websites. This is very misleading because it is a bold claim that can be mis interpreted and believed due to their previous scandal with the charged lemonade. It was good that you included this because although the claim is easy to believe, looking deeper into the sources and credibility of the writer puts into perspectiev that there isn't any real data to back the opinion.

Answer 6

After reading the article attached, I found that the claim that Panera Bread is declining on mashed.com lacks any clear evidence and does not have any specific examples to support the statement. The article brought up worker dissatisfaction, consumer complaints, and other issues but didn't provide specific details or credible sources. Many of the sources and quotes the article provided were personal reviews on Reddit, not including any positive counter-views. It is also important to mention that each Panera Bread restaurant has different reviews and are also all opinion-based. It's important to consider looking at more reliable sources from different types of sources to get the full picture.  

https://www.yelp.com/biz/panera-bread-springfield-24 versus https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/panerabread.com

Comments

I completely agree with you, this seems like a big opinion piece that doesn't care to show both sides of the story. I think that if they included more testimonials from both sides of the argument it would have more of an impact and be a more trusting source.

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I agree! it seems very opinion based and doesn't show both sides of the story. They should have included more of each side so that there more evidence from each side.

Answer 7

This claim doesn't have enough evidence to be accurately true. The article cited includes a lot of quotes and opinions from different Reddit users. This is not a credible source for if Panera is losing money. There is no evidence to suggest that Panera is losing profits. There is evidence that they did cut some people from their corporate staff. However, this had more to do with the fact that their parent company was going public. For this to be a true claim there needs to be evidence of a consistent drop in profit, stock, and locations. 

source:

https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/panera-bread-cuts-17-corporate-staff-preparation-planned-ipo

Answer 8

After checking the credibility of the writer and analyzing the sources used in the article it points in the diraction that this statement is opinion based and lacks factual evidence. The writer has a college degree in family developement and her only credentials for being able to claim panara is at a decline is that she likes writing about food. There is no data that proves this decline it is just based on her opinion on the quality of the food and some of the opinions she found from reddit.

Comments

I would love to see where you found this information. Linking articles and websites to support your claims will make you more credible. I also think it would be a good idea to review your work to make sure you are not making any spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Readers are less likely to believe your fact-check if there are blatant errors.

Answer 9

This is an opinion piece. There has been two deaths while drinking Panera Bread's "Charged Lemonade" within the last few months but there is not confirmation that this has caused the decline in Panera Bread. In 2022, Panera Bread had surpassed $4.8 billion in 2022. There is no evidence that Panera Bread is declining or going out of business.

Answer 10

After reading through the article, "Signs Panera Might Not Be Around Much Longer" I was able to come to the conclusion that this claim is both exaggerated and false. When reading the article a lot of the information came from customers who were unsatisfied by their food experience. Although this may be true, that doesn't mean that Panera Bread is on the decline. Also when searching through the article no where did the writer state any financial reports of how the company is doing financially. If the author had included this information then that would help back up their claim. 

When doing some digging on the author of the piece I couldn't find any information surrounding if she had a connection with Panera Bread or if she had talked to anyone within the company previously. The only information that I had found about her was from the Mashed website. From the website it stated that she is an "avid foodie" and has an expertise in "food education, healthy eating, and dietary-specific needs". If the author had an expertise in business journalism or an inside source when it came to food and business then maybe the author would be more reliable. 

I also wanted to do some digging when it came to the financials of Panera Bread. Although Panera Bread hasn't made their financial statements available to the public in a few years, I was able to see that they have been doing quite well since 2022. According to Matt Weller, whose "analysis is regularly featured in the Financial Times, Reuters, MarketWatch and The Wall Street Journal" stated that Panera Bread "impressive revenue figures, particularly the $4.8 billion in 2022 sales, and its significant digital sales hint at a healthy financial status". Through a reliable source I am able to see that Panera Bread is actually doing quite well financially which contradicts the article. 

Overall the information is both false and exaggerated. Through the use of financial statements, a background check of the author, and information throughout the piece I am able to see that this article was used to attract the viewer but it didn't use any credible information to show that Panera Bread is on the decline.

https://www.mashed.com/author/elliebarbee/ 

https://www.forex.com/en/news-and-analysis/panera-bread-ipo-everything-you-need-to-know-about-panera-bread/#:~:text=Is%20Panera%20Bread%20Profitable%3F,at%20a%20healthy%20financial%20status.

https://www.forex.com/en/news-and-analysis/forex-com-analysts/matt-weller/