Panera’s New Salad Stuffers Are Already Controversial

Panera just launched an all new menu and the standout items that everyone’s talking about are the Salad Stuffers. While some folks are psyched on the idea of gulping down a bread tube packed with lettuce and dressing, others are fuming. Here’s why Salad Stuffers aren’t going down great with Panera customers. 

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Salad Stuffers = food waste

Many people have pointed out that Panera’s Salad Stuffers result in a ton of food waste. Why? Because, to make a Salad Stuffer, you first have to hollow out a long bread roll. What happens to those bread innards? According to one Panera employee on Reddit, that leftover bread gets tossed. “My manager went to a meeting about menu changes and was told these scraps cannot be given to customer[s] or fed to birds,” they wrote. A photo showed a workspace piled high with bread chunks scooped from baguettes. 

“The core of the bread is thrown out, and a good chunk of the salad gets tossed in the trash too. These are a huge waste of money and food guys, I wouldn’t recommend spending your hard earned cash on them,” another Reddit user wrote in a separate post. “We have tried everything to fit an entire half salad in them and we can’t even get close. We throw a lot of the salad away,” someone else who seems to work at Panera agreed. 

Some people have ideas for how Panera could use the innards: croutons! And, according to yet another Redditor, that used to be something Panera did. “We used to make the croutons from the extra bread that didn’t get used that day! Added some cheese sauce and olive oil and baked in the oven. We used the bread slicer twice (vertical then horizontal) to cut them into perfect dice, then I’d just load it onto a pan.”

Another user had different idea for how to keep the bread from going to waste. “Can I order this and say can I have it in a bowl [with] the bread on the side bc it’s easier and there’s more for the price and I appreciate it?” Panera employees responded that, if they were asked this, they would definitely say yes. Seems worth a try! 

Do they at least taste good?

Even Panera customers who don’t give a hoot about being environmentally conscious aren’t sold on Salad Stuffers as they currently stand. “You’re absolutely wasting your money buying these things,” a Redditor wrote in a post. “You get less salad and you have to eat what you do get [you have to eat] extremely fast or else everything gets mushy and gross.” Their solution? “Just order a half salad with a baguette (maybe an extra baguette if you’d like a larger portion of bread) and eat them together. I promise it’s just the same if not better.”