The Launch
Panera Bread is expanding its fall menu with four new permanent and seasonal additions rolling out September 2 across all 2,251 company and franchise bakery-cafes in 48 states, Washington D.C., and Ontario, Canada. The move is a seasonal traffic play timed to back-to-school routines and the broader consumer shift toward comfort-driven dining as temperatures fall.
The lead item is the Three-Cheese Lasagna Soup — a new permanent offering featuring Italian-style sausage, lasagna ribbon pasta, and a ricotta-tomato broth finished with asiago and parmesan. The chain is also returning its Autumn Squash Soup and Rustic Baked Potato Soup to the menu, rounding out a soup lineup that has historically been one of Panera's highest-frequency visit drivers in the fall and winter dayparts.
New Items in Detail
On the bakery side, Panera is introducing two new SKUs: a PB&J Cookie — a peanut butter base with grape jelly filling, dusted with powdered sugar — and Cinnamon Croissant Bites served with icing. The chain is also restoring the Chocolate Chip Bagel, a returning seasonal item. Ciabatta Dippers, sandwich formats specifically designed for soup pairing, return in two varieties: French Ciabatta Dipper and Chicken Pesto Ciabatta Dipper. The dip-oriented positioning reflects an operator strategy to drive higher average check through bundled soup-and-sandwich combinations.
"From the hearty warmth of our new Three-Cheese Lasagna Soup to the playful joy of our PB&J Cookie, we're bringing everything our guests love about the season to the menu," said Scott Uehlein, Vice President of Culinary, Panera Bread. The company also cited the return of the Harvest Medley Salad — mixed greens, arugula, pumpkin seeds, mandarin oranges, and beet strips — as part of the broader seasonal push.
Operator Context
Panera operates as part of Panera Brands, one of the largest fast-casual restaurant groups in the United States, which also includes Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagels. The fast-casual bakery-cafe segment has faced intensifying competition from both quick-service chains expanding their soup and warm-sandwich offerings and premium independent operators. Seasonal limited-time offer strategies have become a standard lever for driving repeat visits and social media engagement in the segment, with operators increasingly using nostalgic formats — such as the PB&J Cookie — to generate earned media without significant incremental marketing spend.
For foodservice distributors and supply-chain partners, the addition of lasagna ribbon pasta and ricotta-based broth components at Panera's scale — more than 2,200 units — represents a meaningful procurement commitment for fall and winter. Industry trends in fast-casual menu development have increasingly favored soup-forward rotations as a margin-protective move, given soup's relatively low food cost and strong consumer price tolerance in colder months.
All new items are available for dine-in, delivery, Rapid Pick-Up, and drive-thru. Panera is simultaneously promoting enrollment in its relaunched MyPanera loyalty program, which the company has positioned as a points-based system with exclusive member perks — a direct response to competitive loyalty programs across the broader restaurant and foodservice sector.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
