Commercial and Retail Bakeries NAICS 311811, 311812

Nov 20, 2025 - Panera Scratches From Scratch Baking

• Panera Bread in November announced it will shut down its remaining fresh dough production facilities and transition to a par-baked model. Previously, Panera operated a system of fresh dough facilities that produced dough daily for all baked items served at its 2,000-plus bakery-cafes across the US. In 2024, the chain began moving toward a par-baked approach, where baked products are delivered to locations partially baked and then finished in on-site ovens. To date, eight of its fresh dough facilities have shut down, and nine remain operational. Panera will partner with external artisan bakery producers as part of this shift away from the fresh dough facilities, MSN reports. These new artisan bakers will follow Panera's bread recipes, partially bake them, and then ship them to store locations. Workers at the company’s fresh-dough locations are facing layoffs as the company outsources production.
• Falling prices for wheat, which recently hit five-year lows, and rising input costs have made the crop unsustainable for many US growers, crop insurance provider ProAg reports. Across the heartland, wheat farming is in steep decline as low prices, prolonged droughts, and global competition push farmers to abandon the crop. Once the dominant crop from Texas to Montana, hard red winter (HRW) wheat is no longer profitable for many growers. With prices for HRW wheat, favored by bakers for bread, hovering around $5 per bushel, some US wheat farmers have reached an inflection point, with many forced to either lose money, feed wheat to cattle, or kill off the crop. In states like Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, farmers are turning wheat fields into pastures, hay, or replacing them with more profitable crops like corn and soybeans.

• Tariffs on imports from the US’s top three trading partners are expected to cost the baking industry about $454 million this year, according to the American Bakers Association (ABA). This figure includes $244 million due to a 25% tariff on imported ingredients such as flour blends and sweeteners from Canada, $170 million due to tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, and $40 million from a 10% tariffs on Chinese goods, according to ABA. Also, a 125% tariff levied on certain imports from China in April to curb US reliance on foreign manufacturing is raising the cost of packaging and baking equipment. In July, President Trump threatened to raise the tariff on goods from Canada to 35%, with an exemption for goods that comply with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement applying for now, according to the White House.
• Producer prices for bakery products rose 2.5% in August compared to a year ago, after rising 1.6% in the previous August-versus-August annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Industry producer prices for both commercial and retail bakeries are near all-time highs amid rising costs for ingredients, labor, and other inputs. Employment by bread and bakery product manufacturers remained flat year over year in July, while the average industry wage rose 3% over the same period to a new high of $23.13 per hour, BLS data show.