Panera criticized for frozen mac and cheese

Panera Bread is facing customer criticism for serving food that's been frozen.

A viral video on social media app TikTok showed an employees placing a frozen bag of macaroni and cheese into a vat of boiling water. She then cuts open the cooked mac and cheese and places it in a bowl.

The employee later was fired, she said, though company officials declined to comment.

Panera spokeswoman Jessica Hesselschwerdt did confirm the use of frozen soups and mac and cheese "to avoid using certain preservatives that do not meet our clean standards."

"We want to make sure that if you're in Massachusetts or California or in any one of our 2,100 locations that you get that same awesome experience," she said. "This is how we are efficient and how we make it consistent. We want that experience to be great, and that's the best way to do it."

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