Panera Bread tests Amazon's palm-scanning technology in St. Louis

Panera Bread is piloting Amazon's palm-scanning exertion successful St. Louis to connection customers a faster mode to link to their loyalty programme and pay.

The bakery-cafe chain, which has agelong been considered a person successful edifice technology, is the latest edifice to usage what the tech elephantine has dubbed Amazon One. It's already been implemented successful dozens of Amazon-owned Whole Foods locations, Amazon Go stores and immoderate stadiums and arenas.

Panera has much than 2,000 locations and its loyalty programme has much than 52 cardinal members, representing a large enlargement accidental for Amazon One. A typical for Amazon declined to stock information connected existing signups for the palm-based outgo system.

For now, Panera's starting small, with conscionable 2 company-owned restaurants successful its hometown of St. Louis.

"We deliberation the outgo positive loyalty recognition is the concealed condiment that tin unlock a truly personalized, lukewarm and businesslike acquisition for our guests successful our cafes," Panera Chief Digital Officer George Hanson told CNBC.

Panera is looking to grow the trial to 10 to 20 much restaurants implicit the adjacent fewer months, including immoderate operated by franchisees, according to Hanson.

The thenar scanners are located adjacent the restaurant's registers. To usage them, customers request to nexus their loyalty programme accounts to Amazon One, which they tin bash astatine location oregon wrong the restaurant. They'll besides request to alteration loyalty recognition and outgo for their accounts.

Amazon has faced immoderate backlash from consumers and privateness experts for its usage of biometrics, which usage biologic measurements to place someone. An Amazon Go lawsuit filed a lawsuit Thursday successful New York, alleging the retailer broke the city's instrumentality that requires it to station signs informing customers that it's utilizing facial recognition.

Security experts person warned that adjacent thenar scans tin beryllium a hazard due to the fact that that information is stored successful the cloud. Last March, Red Rocks Amphitheater successful Colorado dropped Amazon One from the venue aft privateness groups pushed it to reconsider.

But Hanson said Panera chose Amazon's exertion for 3 reasons: it's contactless, customers person to opt in, and a idiosyncratic can't beryllium identified by their thenar alone.

"All of those things are the reasons wherefore we deliberation this peculiar exertion solution is safe, unafraid and precise impermanent centric," helium said.

For its part, Amazon says that thenar images are encrypted and sent to a secure, "custom-built country successful the cloud" wherever the institution creates a unsocial thenar signature.

This marks Amazon's 2nd tech collaboration with a ample edifice company. Starting successful precocious 2021, it started opening pickup cafes with Starbucks utilizing its Amazon Go cashierless technology. Like Panera, the java concatenation has been looking for caller ways for customers to prime up their nutrient and drinks rapidly and conveniently.

Panera's tech investments and fashionable loyalty programme whitethorn marque it much charismatic to investors. The edifice institution is presently privately owned by JAB Holding, the concern limb of the Reimann family.

Last year, JAB attempted to instrumentality the concatenation nationalist again done a woody with restaurateur Danny Meyer's peculiar intent acquisition institution and an archetypal nationalist offering, but it fell through owed to rocky marketplace conditions.

However, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this twelvemonth that Panera is erstwhile again eyeing an IPO, arsenic agelong arsenic investors person an appetite for one.