Breast Cancer Awareness: Panera's 10th Anniversary of the Pink Ribbon Bagel

It is the 10^th Anniversary of the Pink Ribbon Bagel, a ribbon-shaped bagel that was created by Sue Stees, a Panera franchisee and breast cancer survivor, to help raise money for other women fighting the disease. Since the bagel began in 2001, Panera has sold more than 7 million Pink Ribbon Bagels, raising more than $1 million for breast cancer charities.

This year, each of Panera’s 1,400 bakery-cafes will sell the bagels with hopes of topping last year’s 1.9 million Pink Ribbon Bagels sold.  

Twenty-six years ago, Sue Stees – a co-owner of 18 Panera Bread franchises – was pronounced cancer-free after a long battle with breast cancer. As a way to help other women fighting the same disease, she developed a Pink Ribbon Bagel – a ribbon-shaped bagel filled with cherries – in her stores in 2001 and donating the proceeds to breast cancer charities.

In 2005, Panera – after noticing how much everyone loved the bagels – adopted the bagel corporately and each of the company’s 1,400 bakery-cafes began selling them to benefit local recipients fighting breast cancer.  Since then, Panera has raised more than $1 million dollars for local breast cancer organizations.

By the Numbers

·         $.10: The minimum amount from the sale of each sale of Panera’s pink ribbon bagel that goes to local breast cancer charities

·         1.9 million: Number of PRBs sold in 2010

·         $75K: Amount of money raised in 2010

·         7 million +: Number of PRBs sold since introduced

·         $1 million: Amount of money raised since introduced