Ron Shaich
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Every one of these businesses are defined by their structure.
Structure matters.
For example, I can't tell you how many conversations over the years I had with Howard Schultz about Starbucks and their desire to do better food.
But they could never...
Why couldn't they?
Because they have a frozen food system.
They manufacture in one place and they freeze it.
They ship it into the store and they defrost it.
They spent $100 million on an acquisition, boulangerie, great little bakery.
Could they bring it to Starbucks?
No, because the system defines what they're capable of doing.
Similarly at Panera, we were an assembly business.
We started as a sandwich place.
We put together sandwiches.
We didn't have real culinary skills in the stores.
Our ability was simply to assemble.
So we were limited.
We took on Tate, and I originally bought Tate for Panera.
I saw it as a better version of Panera in certain neighborhoods.
I then converted one of our stores in Harvard Square, actually.