Panera's Pink Ribbon Bagel® to benefit Memorial Hermann Breast Care Centers

HOUSTON -- Panera Bread is celebrating 10 years of fighting breast cancer by baking bagels. This October, the signature Pink Ribbon Bagel® will be sold at all of Panera Bread’s approximately 1,500 bakery-cafes, with a portion of the proceeds from each bagel sold going to a variety of breast cancer causes throughout the country. A staple each October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, donations from the sale of the Pink Ribbon Bagel have now raised more than $1 million for breast cancer charities and Panera Bread and its franchisees hope to make 2011 the largest year for donations ever.

“The Pink Ribbon Bagel is a customer favorite, in part because it’s a delicious way to start the day and because each bagel sold helps bring us one step closer to finding a cure for breast cancer,” said Panera local spokesperson John Segura. “Panera Bread is proud to work with the communities we serve to help raise money for such a worthy cause. In our market, Memorial Hermann Breast Care Centers will receive the funds we raise to help Breast Cancer research.

This year, Panera Bread is making it even easier to help fight breast cancer locally with the Power of Pink Baker’s Dozen. Throughout the month of October all Houston Metro area bakery-cafes, will donate one dollar from any baker’s dozen of bagels and twenty five cents of each individual Pink Ribbon Bagel sold to Memorial Hermann Breast Care Centers.

Shaped in the form of the iconic pink ribbon, Pink Ribbon Bagels feature cherry chips, dried cherries and cranberries, vanilla, honey, and brown sugar, and are baked fresh early each morning by Panera’s bakers at each bakery-cafe. For each bagel sold, at least 10 cents will be donated to support breast cancer awareness and research. Nearly two million Pink Ribbon Bagels were sold in 2010, raising more than $75,000 for charity.

Panera Bread company-owned and franchise-operated bakery-cafes also support charitable causes through its Operation Dough-Nation® program. They support Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center and have donated over $30,000 dollars in the last two years through this program. Since it was founded in 1992 to formalize Panera’s commitment to community involvement, Operation Dough-Nation has contributed both monetary and bread donations through its Community Breadbox™ and Day-End Dough-Nation™ programs to local food pantries, hunger relief agencies and other community organizations.

In 2009, Panera Bread bakery-cafes collectively donated a retail value of more than $50 million of bread and baked goods to charitable organizations helping to feed the hungry in our local communities.

The Pink Ribbon Bagel concept began in 2001 when Sue Stees, co-owner of 18 Panera Bread franchises and a breast cancer survivor, began searching for ways to help other women fighting the same disease. Her search led her to the kitchen where she developed the Pink Ribbon Bagel. She sold 27,000 bagels in her bakery-cafes that first year and was awarded the “You Can Make a Difference Award” from Susan G. Komen for the Cure. To date, more than seven million Pink Ribbon Bagels have been sold.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this simple bagel concept – created in my Tulsa bakery-cafe – would grow to where it is today, educating the community on breast cancer and inspiring those who are fighting this disease,” Stees said. “I’m extremely blessed to have survived to see the Pink Ribbon Bagel make such an impact over the last 10 years.”