Paying it Forward One Chili Bowl at a Time

At Panera locations in St. Louis, diners are asked to pay what they want when ordering the turkey chili bread bowl.

April 03, 2013

ST. LOUIS – What happens when customers are asked to pay what they want for one item off the menu? Panera units in St. Louis have launched an experiment to find out, Nation’s Restaurant News reports. While the Panera Bread Foundation has five Panera Cares cafes that operate entirely as pay-what-you-can stores, the company is expanding the concept to a single entrée on its mainstream menus.

Customers ordering a turkey chili bread bowl at 48 St. Louis Panera locations will not be charged the retail price of $5.98 including tax, but instead will be asked to pay what they want for the food. “It’s a test,” said Linn Parrish, vice president of public relations for Panera. “We were inspired by the Panera Cares model of shared responsibility. We’re taking that concept and seeing if we can scale in the retail cafes.”

Guests pay — or not pay — for the turkey chili bowl at the register, not in donation bins like at the Panera Cares locations. “A guest can say that they’d like to pay the suggested retail value,” said Parrish, “or can say, ‘This is great. I’d like to pay it forward. Put $10 on my credit card,’ or, ‘Here’s a $10 bill.’ Or they can say they need the meal and, ‘Here’s a dime,’ or, ‘Here’s nothing.’”

The company has labeled its turkey chili meal, which also has an apple, as “Meal of Shared Responsibility.”

“When we launched our community café concept three years ago, skeptics thought that too many people would take advantage and too few would share in the responsibility of sustaining the effort,” said Ron Shaich, chairman/co-CEO of Panera Bread Co., and president of Panera Bread Foundation. “But there are now five non-profit community cafés across the country and they’re all working.”

Panera calls its turkey chili bowl a “test of humanity, a social experiment, if you will,” said Parrish. “We need to learn what we don’t know. … We have to make sure it makes business sense."

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