Panera Bread will remove all additives from its menu by 2016. Take that, Subway.
Until now, the food industry鈥檚 response to growing public clamor over unnatural chemicals in its food has been incremental: A bread additive removed here, a dye in a sports drink replaced there. Panera, on the other hand, is going big where others have gone small.
The restaurant-caf茅听chain will remove all artificial additives from its menu by 2016, the company announced Tuesday. That means no dyes, no preservatives, and no artificial sweeteners in any Panera restaurant-caf茅 offerings.
鈥淲e believe simpler is better,鈥� Scott Davis, chief concept officer, said in the statement announcing the changes. 鈥淧anera is on a mission to help fix a broken food system. We have a long journey ahead, but we鈥檙e working closely with the nutrition community, industry experts, farmers, suppliers and others to make a difference.鈥�
Panera also released a list of menu items that will have additives removed, including:
Deli smoked turkey: potassium lactate, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, and sodium diacetate.
贬辞谤蝉别谤补诲颈蝉丑:听calcium disodium EDTA
Citrus Pepper Chicken:听maltodextrin, potassium lactate
Cilantro Jalape帽o Hummus:听ascorbic acid and tocopherol, tara gum, carrageenan, potassium sorbate, and sodium benzoate
Summer corn chowder:听tapioca Dextrin, modified corn starch, autolyzed yeast extract, maltodextrin, coconut oil derived from triglycerides, artificial flavors
Roast beef:听caramel color
鈥淪ome items may disappear, but what is more likely to happen is for items to be reformulated,鈥� Kate Antonacci, Panera鈥檚 director of societal impact initiatives, writes the Monitor via e-mail.
Panera has made being at the forefront of food industry changes central to its brand in recent years, perhaps sensing an increased public awareness and concern about what goes into a meal. It was among the first restaurants to post calorie counts on its menus, well before doing so became mandatory for large, national chains.
Today鈥檚 additives announcement was part of a larger 鈥渇ood policy鈥� released by the chain, which outlines its commitment to an array of causes that food activists and conscientious eaters hold dear, including meat raised without antibiotics and sustainable fishing and farming.
Panera鈥檚 additive purge is just the latest move in an arms race among food companies, especially quick-service restaurants, to convince an ingredient-conscious public that they have their best interests at heart. Subway recently removed a controversial preservative from its sandwich bread, a move it broadcast loudly in national TV commercials. Chick-fil-A made a series of highly publicized menu tweaks early this year, removing artificial dyes from some of its dipping sauces and committing to a switch to antibiotic-free chicken within the next five years.
Panera going whole hog in the additive issue and combining it with an overarching menu philosophy makes those smaller moves look, well, small. 鈥淲e鈥檝e never been about one-off reactionary changes,鈥� Ms. Antonacci writes. 鈥淩ather, for decades, we have worked to provide our customers with food they can trust and transparency that allows them to make choices.鈥�
It puts Panera more in line with Chipotle, which advertises its use of 鈥渘aturally raised鈥� pork, and a commitment to have its menu free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) 听in CEO Steve Ells鈥檚 words.
