Great Harvest franchisee fends off Panera

Six months after selling Indiana Bread Co. to a store manager, local bread baron Mark McSweeney is concentrating solely on his Great Harvest Bread Co. franchises as his newest competitor continues to grow.

McSweeney founded Indiana Bread Co. in 1996 with brother-in-law Dan Corcoran and grew 'the small business to three units. Two locations remained when he sold it. to former manager David Jarrett earlier this year.

Jarrett recently changed the name of the City Market location to Prestige. He still offers a menu of sandwiches, soups and salads, but has stopped baking and selling his own bread. His other location, inside the IUPUI student activity center, is now called Indiana Bread.

"We just changed the concept a little bit," Jarrett said.

An Indiana Bread Co. store at 6 W. Washington St. closed in 2000.

McSweeney, meanwhile, has returned his full attention to Great Harvest, a franchise he started in 1996. "I wanted to get back to Great Harvest and do one thing instead of juggling things," he said.

Originally, McSweeney had bigger plans for Indiana Bread Co., which he planned on running along with Great Harvest. He told IBJ in 1997 that he eventually hoped to open six to 10 units in Indianapolis

His newest competitor, Panera Bread Co., has been putting on the heat since opening its first Indianapolis store in September 1999.

"I think Panera has definitely taken a lot of business in this niche. They spend $1 million opening stores that look great," McSweeney said. But, he said, "they're not a bread competitor."

St. Louis-based Panera, formerly known as Au Bon Pain Co., operates five stores in the Indianapolis area-Carmel, Fishers, Castleton, Greenwood and the northwest side. Knead Bread LLC, a franchisee based in St. Joseph, Mich., operates the local Panera stores, as well as units in Fort Wayne, Bloomington and West Lafayette.

As of late July, shares in publicly traded Panera had quadrupled since a year earlier and are now up about 150 percent over August 2000. The company is planning a blistering store-opening schedule, which calls for 84 new bakery/cafes this year. Of those, 70 will be franchised and 14 will be company owned.

Montana-based Great Harvest, a privately held company, operates 174 locations nationwide through franchisees.

McSweeney owns three Great Harvest locations-at 1069 Broad Ripple Ave., 8923 S. Meridian St. in Greenwood and 1426 W. 86th St.