This week on Nation's Restaurant News the top story was Panera Brands names José Alberto Dueñas CEO as it prepares to go public. With this announcement, Panera’s current CEO Niren Chaudhary will move into the chairman position. The company has also named former Starbucks CEO and independent director Patrick Grismer as chairman of the audit committee.
Also, KFC added nuggets to its nationwide menu on March 27. Less than eight weeks later, the chain is reporting that over 100 million nuggets have been sold thus far. The company wouldn’t disclose if this number is in line with expectations, however a spokesperson said, “we’re very excited with the success we’ve seen to date.”
It appears as though the nuggets are also helping to generate traffic, in addition to sales. Placer.ai datafinds that KFC’s traffic increased more than 8% in the beginning of April following the product’s launch.
See what else was trending on NRN.com this week.
