• Time, Wednesday, December 23, 2009 10:38 AM

Panera, the soup and sandwich chain that now has more than 1,300 outlets and is one of the best-performing stocks of the decade (a return of 1,560.65%), has responded to the recession in a somewhat contrarian way. It has just kept doing what it had been doing, writes Sean Gregory.

"The key to Panera's success lies in what the company hasn't done," notes Piper Jaffray analyst Nicole Miller Regan. "Panera hasn't fallen victim to discounting. It hasn't levered up the balance sheet. It hasn't tried to change."

Panera founder, chairman and CEO Ron Shaich claims that the fundamentals of its marketplace have not changed, and Panera has stayed focused on the target customer, which was never the unemployed. It has also continued to grow, opening a new store every five days in 2009, hiring 20,000 new workers, rolling out new menu items, and even improving the quality of its lettuce. "For us, the recession has been the best of times," says Shaich.

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