Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA) has benefited greatly from the trend toward healthier eating, with its corporate philosophy encouraging customers to treat its restaurants like a home away from home. So far, that strategy has produced impressive growth. Let’s take an early look at what’s been happening with Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA) over the past quarter and what we’re likely to see in its quarterly report.
Stats on Panera
| Analyst EPS Estimate | $1.65 |
| Change From Year-Ago EPS | 17.9% |
| Revenue Estimate | $566.1 million |
| Change From Year-Ago Revenue | 13.5% |
| Earnings Beats in Past 4 Quarters | 4 |
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
Will Panera’s earnings stay healthy this quarter?
Analysts in recent months have become slightly more optimistic about Panera’s earnings prospects. They’ve raised their estimates for the just-ended quarter by $0.02 per share and ratcheted up their 2013 full-year consensus by twice that amount. The stock has done reasonably well, rising about 10% since mid-January.
Panera has thrived by selling healthy fare in an inviting bakery setting. Not content to allow Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) to dominate the early morning coffee niche, Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA) has used some of the same tactics as its rival, building out its restaurants to encourage customers to linger with Wi-Fi and comfortable furnishings. Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) has reupped its efforts to go beyond coffee with its purchase last year of bakery company La Boulange, but that hasn’t stopped Panera from posting strong growth.
One way that Panera has successfully gone beyond its coffee rival is in offering catering services. The company saw its catering sales rise 19% last quarter, and Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA) expects to continue to expand in the area as customers get familiar with its availability and convenience. Fellow healthy-eatery Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) announced at the beginning of the year that it would follow suit with its own catering service, seeking to keep up with its competitor’s faster growth rate.
Panera has also sought to gain favor not just with customers and investors but with the communities it serves as well. With initiatives to help the hungry, like donating baked goods to community organizations and its “pay-what-you-can” experiment with certain specialty stores scattered around the country, Panera has built a strong reputation for doing good as well.
In Panera’s quarterly report, look at Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ:PNRA)’s sales and earnings growth not just compared with the company’s previous results but also in comparison with the figures Chipotle just released last week. If Panera can keep staying ahead of its competitors, it should have a strong future ahead of it.
The article An Early Look at Panera’s Earnings originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Dan Caplinger.
Fool contributor Dan Caplinger has no position in any stocks mentioned. You can follow him on Twitter: @DanCaplinger. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Chipotle Mexican (NYSE:CMG) Grill, Panera Bread, and Starbucks.
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