Food Operations & Innovation Manager (Hybrid)

Panera Bread; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 84,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Panera Bread is seeking a Manager of Food Operations, Innovation & Support in Newton, MA. This hybrid role partners with Culinary, Operations, and Support Center teams to validate new products, programs, and processes for national rollout, ensuring feasibility and quality.

The successful candidate will lead cross-functional projects, manage timelines, and drive operational readiness while balancing guest experience with innovation. Travel up to 50% is expected as projects demand.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent preferred.
• 5+ years’ experience in restaurant operations environment.
• Strong project management and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Detail-oriented and curious, able to quickly evaluate inter-dependencies between projects and programs.
• Ability to multitask, prioritize and balance varying workloads to ensure delivery of high-quality results.
• Travel up to 50% of the time depending on project needs.

Responsibilities

• Partner with Culinary and cross-functional teams to identify operational impacts, risks, and complexity of new menu items and programs during development.
• Lead product testing efforts, ensuring concepts are thoroughly vetted and validated before deployment.
• Evaluate operational readiness and recommend solutions that balance innovation, quality, execution, and guest experience.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously from concept through rollout, developing project plans, timelines, and resource requirements.
• Monitor project milestones, identify risks, remove barriers, and escalation issues when needed to ensure successful execution.
• Provide accurate status updates and drive accountability across project teams to deliver results on time and within scope.
• Serve as a key liaison between Operations, Culinary, Training, Marketing, Supply Chain, Technology, and other support teams.
• Influence stakeholders and facilitate decision-making to align priorities and achieve project objectives.
• Apply creative problem-solving and operational expertise to transform innovative ideas into scalable Panera solutions.

Skills

Project management

Analytics

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Problem-solving

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Panera Bread is seeking a Manager of Food Operations, Innovation & Support in Newton, MA. This hybrid role partners with Culinary, Operations, and Support Center teams to validate new products, programs, and processes for national rollout, ensuring feasibility and quality.

The successful candidate will lead cross-functional projects, manage timelines, and drive operational readiness while balancing guest experience with innovation. Travel up to 50% is expected as projects demand.