Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: Tracy, do you know my favorite thing about working in
Speaker 1: midtown Manhattan?
Speaker 2: Is it the daily commute?
Speaker 1: Actually, I have a fine commute. I'm like a few
Speaker 1: stops away on the subway. That's fine. Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I love the plethora of bowl lunch options that we
Speaker 1: have around as we're in the bowl lunch capital of
Speaker 1: the world, maybe DC also, but I imagine like the
Speaker 1: per capita number of places that let you like get
Speaker 1: something that's sort of like like you're feeding from a
Speaker 1: trophy and you can get it right in front of
Speaker 1: your computer and eat while checking Twitter or your emails.
Speaker 1: It's very nice.
Speaker 2: I feel very old because I remember like when none
Speaker 2: of these existed, and if you wanted to get lunch
Speaker 2: in midtown Manhattan, you went to like a sandwich shop
Speaker 2: and you had a selection of sandwiches and you weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to make any individual customer choices. And I guess
Speaker 2: the upside of that was it took everyone literally ten
Speaker 2: seconds to order, and now it seems to take everyone
Speaker 2: about six minutes. Yeah, but of course, the downside is
Speaker 2: you weren't able to customize. You weren't able to get
Speaker 2: the specific things that you want maybe pay as much
Speaker 2: attention as you can now to ingredients. So it's definitely changed.
Speaker 1: It's definitely changed.
Speaker 3: By the way.
Speaker 1: Speaking of change, I've been rewatching I think it's on
Speaker 1: Hulu or something, the old La Law episodes that are
Speaker 1: streaming again, and it's so funny watching what professional lunches
Speaker 1: looked like in the eighties, like white table cloths was
Speaker 1: at stake. It was like fancier like plates of I
Speaker 1: don't know, vegetables over a piece of.
Speaker 2: Fish, and people actually going out too.
Speaker 1: Restaurants anyway, So that's a side that version. But I
Speaker 1: actually do like being able to just eat in a
Speaker 1: bowl at my computer and staring at the screen anyway.
Speaker 1: But it does raise the questions there are all these
Speaker 1: chains and wan offs doing salads and Mediterranean bowls and
Speaker 1: cava and knockoff cava and knockoff of the knockoff kava
Speaker 1: and salad bowls and stuff like that, and knockoff chipotles.
Speaker 1: How do you stand out? How do you win in
Speaker 1: this game where there are clearly many competitors.
Speaker 2: No, I completely agree. It seems like a crowded market
Speaker 2: at the moment, and everyone, even the non bowl places
Speaker 2: have their version of a bowl nowadays. But also I'm
Speaker 2: really interested in how you come up with the specific
Speaker 2: offerings for customers and like how much of it is
Speaker 2: what people are asking for, so demand versus supply, Like
Speaker 2: what is available to you in terms of ingredients at
Speaker 2: a cost effective price?
Speaker 1: Totally. Well, we really do have the perfect guest to
Speaker 1: talk about all of this. How the lunches that we
Speaker 1: eat get in front of us, how the ingredients are selected.
Speaker 1: Why am I eating this salad that I'm eating right now?
Speaker 1: Figuratively I'm not eating a salad right now. We're going
Speaker 1: to be speaking with Nick Jamai. He is the co
Speaker 1: founder of Sweet Green, one of them success stories in
Speaker 1: the Salid Bowl Game. So Nick, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on.
Speaker 4: Odd Lots, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of things to talk about in the bowl game,
Speaker 1: but let's start with something. You recently announced that Sweet
Speaker 1: Green is going to be not cooking anything in seed
Speaker 1: oils and it's only going to be using I think
Speaker 1: olive oil and other higher quality oils. There is an
Speaker 1: internet community of people who are like really antiseed oils.
Speaker 2: Joe's dream is to finally do the anti seed oil episode.
Speaker 1: We're going to do an hour long conversation about seed
Speaker 1: oils and seed oil Bros. But actually, for real, though,
Speaker 1: I am curious, why did you make this switch? How
Speaker 1: much is it actual customer demand, how much is it science,
Speaker 1: how much is it quality? Where did this come from?
Speaker 1: And how much is it going to cost you.
Speaker 4: A great question. So I'm glad we have an hour
Speaker 4: because there's lots to talk about here. We can go deep,
Speaker 4: but zooming out and backing up a bit. The reason
Speaker 4: we started Sweet Greens was because we did see this
Speaker 4: shift in the consumer and this between their relationship with food,
Speaker 4: and we saw this conversation starting to change. We were
Speaker 4: seniors at Georgetown, myself with my co founders Jonathan and Ate,
Speaker 4: and we were missing the options that we wish we
Speaker 4: had to eat, and this idea of wanting food that
Speaker 4: was good for you, that made you feel good, but
Speaker 4: that was also delicious and cravable and cool. We didn't
Speaker 4: see any of those options. And when we looked around,
Speaker 4: all the food that was the most delicious, the most cravable,
Speaker 4: the most accessible, the coolest brands were all the least healthy,
Speaker 4: and so we wanted to change that. We wrote a
Speaker 4: business plan and really in an effort to redefine and
Speaker 4: rethink fast food, the traditional fast food model of what
Speaker 4: you were sourcing, what you were serving, how you were
Speaker 4: prepping it, and ultimately the story you were telling around
Speaker 4: that food. And over the course of the last sixteen years,
Speaker 4: we really tried to create an incredible level of transparency
Speaker 4: around our food, how we're sourcing it, and why all
Speaker 4: that is important and ultimately how all that leads to
Speaker 4: really delicious, cravable food. And the consumer has changed a
Speaker 4: lot in sixteen years, and I'm happy to talk about
Speaker 4: different parts of that, but so much of it has
Speaker 4: been around removing friction between them and and their meal
Speaker 4: and their food, whether that's you know, the convenience of
Speaker 4: how you ordered or how you pick it up or
Speaker 4: how it comes to you, or just the convenience or
Speaker 4: friction of understanding what is in your food and what
Speaker 4: you're eating and how it makes you feel. And so
Speaker 4: I think what got us excited to grow Sweeceren was
Speaker 4: this kind of lifting of the curtain between consumers and
Speaker 4: their food. And I remember very specifically, you know, the
Speaker 4: kind of questions consumers asked and we first started Sweecreen
Speaker 4: about their food and what they asked today are so
Speaker 4: different the information they want to know about their food.
Speaker 4: And so we've been on this, you know, so far
Speaker 4: as sixteen year journey, which sounds like a long time,
Speaker 4: but we still think we're very in the very early
Speaker 4: innings of our of our journey. But in sixteen years,
Speaker 4: it's it's wild to see just the shift of the consumer.
Speaker 4: What they want to know, their connection to food, and
Speaker 4: you know how we are part of that.
Speaker 1: Wait, so set oils though, Yes, were they ask that question? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what I want. Were they what was going
Speaker 1: on here? Was it actual demand? Was it just tweets?
Speaker 1: Was it what happened there?
Speaker 4: So, you know, we spend a lot of time looking
Speaker 4: at all of our ingredients, our whole supply chain, and
Speaker 4: we also spend a lot of time understanding our consumer,
Speaker 4: what they're talking about, what they care with the value
Speaker 4: and it's kind of this balance of learning from the
Speaker 4: customer but also leading them in places we think are
Speaker 4: important for the food system and for our fast food
Speaker 4: model and our menu and our sources have evolved so
Speaker 4: much in sixteen years. So we had seen this growing
Speaker 4: conversation around seed oils, and the more we looked at
Speaker 4: just the consumer conversation around it, and the more we
Speaker 4: did our research to understand. And I will say on
Speaker 4: that point, doing the research around any of these supply
Speaker 4: chains or any of these ingredients can be pretty tricky
Speaker 4: because a most of them are incredibly probably nuanced in
Speaker 4: some ways. Right, there's some parts that are black and white,
Speaker 4: but there's incredible nuance in what's good for you, what
Speaker 4: the carbon footprint is, and across all supply chains like seafood, oils, poultry, vegetables,
Speaker 4: and so we spend a lot of time trying to
Speaker 4: understand and become experts on all these categories so we
Speaker 4: can make the best decisions possible and then ultimately be
Speaker 4: transparent with those decisions to our customers. So we saw
Speaker 4: this growing converse and for us, it was really understanding
Speaker 4: what we think is important to try to shift some
Speaker 4: of the standard practices in fast food, but also what
Speaker 4: we think our customers would really value. And so we
Speaker 4: talk a lot about price value at tweeed Green, and
Speaker 4: we spend so much time and energy and money sourcing
Speaker 4: our food and building our network of farmers and growers
Speaker 4: and this incredible roster of ingredients and so oils. As
Speaker 4: you look at the last couple of years, it had
Speaker 4: become a growing conversation. And to your point, there's all
Speaker 4: these voices online on social media that have really started
Speaker 4: to focus in on the specifics around oils and what
Speaker 4: part of our diet that makes up and our caloric
Speaker 4: intake and what's good for you it's bad for you.
Speaker 4: And so as we looked around, we saw that no
Speaker 4: chains or large scale restaurant groups were really thinking about
Speaker 4: this or really talking about it. And we look at
Speaker 4: our menu every year and we say, what can we upgrade?
Speaker 4: And this was the investment we wanted to make. We
Speaker 4: thought it was a really important conversation, and we decided
Speaker 4: to change all of our cooking oil to extra vergin
Speaker 4: olive oil and avocado oil, which we were switching from
Speaker 4: high lax and flower oil well, which again this goes
Speaker 4: back to part of the nuance, has a very similar
Speaker 4: fatty asset profile to the two that we're switching to.
Speaker 4: And and generally is you know, different than a lot
Speaker 4: of the other When people say seed oils okay, technically
Speaker 4: is a seed ol But for us, it's really trying
Speaker 4: to understand the nuance and what customers would value. And
Speaker 4: we were excited to make that switch and announcement, and
Speaker 4: you know, the response has been incredible.
Speaker 2: So I definitely want to get into how your supply
Speaker 2: chain works because my understanding is it's different to a
Speaker 2: lot of other chain eateries, but just on olive oil
Speaker 2: in particular, maybe avocado oil as well. But it seems
Speaker 2: like you're doing this a kind of maybe a bad time,
Speaker 2: because I'm looking at a chart. Oh yeah, all the oil, yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's I mean, it reached a record earlier this
Speaker 2: year and it's still phenomenally high. So how do you
Speaker 2: manage the cost of making the switch? And I'm curious
Speaker 2: also do you hedge something like all of oil purchases?
Speaker 4: Great question. So it is if you're looking at the
Speaker 4: chart around the olive oil markets, given in some of
Speaker 4: the situation in Greece and Spain and with weather and
Speaker 4: with the weather and droughts and fires, the olive oil
Speaker 4: markets have really are at an all time high. We
Speaker 4: see that as a more short term blip. We know
Speaker 4: that ultimately will come down to some version of steady state,
Speaker 4: we decided it was still worth the investment, and we're
Speaker 4: able to really think about how to offset that creatively
Speaker 4: within our supply chain, so there was no price increase
Speaker 4: connected to this for our customers, and really just wanted
Speaker 4: to create value there for our customers on the menu.
Speaker 4: And part of the reason of having olive oil and
Speaker 4: avocado it was also to be able to hedge between
Speaker 4: the two. Typically in our supply chain are more important skews.
Speaker 4: We do think about contracts to really think about locking
Speaker 4: in great prices, and we have an incredible supply chain
Speaker 4: team that spends time in the field with our farmers
Speaker 4: and growers and with our partners and really does a
Speaker 4: great job, you know, sourcing incredibly high quality ingredients and
Speaker 4: you know, paying a price that makes sense for our
Speaker 4: business but also makes sense for our partners.
Speaker 2: So when you decide to switch to you know, from
Speaker 2: seed oils some flower oil to all of oil slash avocado,
Speaker 2: how do you go about sourcing that oil? And again,
Speaker 2: maybe this is a good way to get into the
Speaker 2: differences between your supply chain and how you're sourcing things
Speaker 2: versus other restaurants, because my understanding is the majority of
Speaker 2: restaurants they will go through like large food distributors, whereas
Speaker 2: you are sourcing directly from farmers and doing a lot
Speaker 2: of that transportation yourself, I guess abits.
Speaker 4: So the way our supply chain works is, you know,
Speaker 4: we spend a lot of time understanding the different inputs
Speaker 4: and having direct relationships with our growers, farmers, food partner,
Speaker 4: so we go direct to the source. We still use
Speaker 4: distributors to move that product around just because there was
Speaker 4: an efficient there's a very efficient infrastructure around that. And
Speaker 4: you know, we're not in the distribution business and that's
Speaker 4: not part of the Speacreen model. But we spend a
Speaker 4: lot of time directly with the farmers, growers and food
Speaker 4: sources people growing and raising our food to really understand
Speaker 4: how those products fit our ethos. And so we have
Speaker 4: a food ethos that really guides all the decisions and
Speaker 4: vestments we make in our menu, things like focusing on
Speaker 4: regenerative organic growers and produce clean oils, really thinking about
Speaker 4: the animal responsibility of how animals are raised. And so
Speaker 4: for us, we have this you know, detailed foody thist
Speaker 4: that really guides our supply chain team and our culinary
Speaker 4: team and allows us to really make the right decisions.
Speaker 4: We then very often will contract prices directly with growers
Speaker 4: and partners, and then we use our distribution partners to
Speaker 4: move that product around into our restaurants. And so you know,
Speaker 4: we celebrate seasonality, regionality. We work with some of the
Speaker 4: country's greatest farmers and growers that are growing the highest
Speaker 4: quality products across the country and really proud of that.
Speaker 4: Every single one of our restaurants does have a board
Speaker 4: that lists every single source and not just of like
Speaker 4: you know, the cool ingredients like this peaches and season
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you where it's from, our oils,
Speaker 4: our rice, really sharing full transparency around all of our
Speaker 4: ingredients to really again lift the curtain between customers and
Speaker 4: their food. And so for us, we think that's really important,
Speaker 4: and ultimately we do all that because we think it
Speaker 4: leads to the best tasting food when things are grown
Speaker 4: right in the right soil with the right methods and
Speaker 4: you're sourcing high quality food. Ultimately, we are doing all
Speaker 4: fresh prep in our restaurants. But it is not like
Speaker 4: you know, high end culinary chef driven protocols and cooking.
Speaker 4: It is very simply taking high quality ingredients and prepping
Speaker 4: them very minimally for our customers.
Speaker 1: By the way, just for those at home, are those
Speaker 1: curious Tracy I did. First of all, I did not
Speaker 1: realize we actually had spot alive oils on the terminal.
Speaker 1: I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though the tickerssm one.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty it was two thousand euros for a
Speaker 1: metric ton of extraversion spot olive oil. It's recently eight thousand,
Speaker 1: so that's a four burgger since twenty twenty. Pretty extraordinary. Okay,
Speaker 1: one last question on the seed oils. We're not really
Speaker 1: going to go forty five minutes.
Speaker 4: Which is how we met, by the way, yeah on Twitter, right.
Speaker 1: But actually this is this is one last question on
Speaker 1: the seat oil, and then they can move on. How
Speaker 1: much is it about? Like, okay, there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: weirdos with you know, anonymous avatars talking about seed oils
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, so and they're like, okay, there's
Speaker 1: goodly a conversation here. People want a higher quality oil,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But I don't know who these people are,
Speaker 1: and I can't read the science versus like you independently
Speaker 1: saying you know what I think? Actually, avocado oil and
Speaker 1: olive oil sitting aside the Twitter chatter, are better healthier
Speaker 1: oils that you've independently sort of done research on independent
Speaker 1: of what weirdo is on the internet.
Speaker 4: Great question, It is more the latter, and it's really understanding.
Speaker 4: You know, we've made so many great decisions around our
Speaker 4: supply chain and our menu and how we source, just
Speaker 4: based on what we think is right, what direction we
Speaker 4: want to shift the industry in. As I look back
Speaker 4: on the sixteen years, we've made a lot of decision
Speaker 4: on our menu and supply chain that honestly, folks thought
Speaker 4: were a bit crazy when we did it. And ultimately,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: What's an example of something that people thought was crazy.
Speaker 4: You know, opening and not serving, like having a soda
Speaker 4: fountain program. We don't have cheddar cheese, right, we don't
Speaker 4: hope we've had terror cheese at moments, we don't have it.
Speaker 4: What's up with it is that our quest for tetter cheese.
Speaker 1: I'm actually like that seems like a weird decision to me.
Speaker 1: That Like when you say because that struck me, I've
Speaker 1: gone to sweet grain a handful of times, just a
Speaker 1: normal cheese like that seems like an interesting decision to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I would say there are dozens of
Speaker 4: ingredients that would be incredible on our menu and that
Speaker 4: we just can't have room for them. All. Our menu
Speaker 4: does evolve when things come on and off, and so
Speaker 4: cheddar is definitely something that might make its way back
Speaker 4: on the menyn day.
Speaker 1: Wait, so speaking of red headline breaking news when this
Speaker 1: comes out, cheddar might come back one day.
Speaker 2: So speaking of things that can come on and off
Speaker 2: the menu, and also weirdos on the internet. As part
Speaker 2: of my research, I was looking on Twitter and it
Speaker 2: seems like the thing people are most upset about at
Speaker 2: Sweet Green at the moment is used to stop serving beats.
Speaker 2: And I can read you like dozens of tweets on
Speaker 2: this subject. No beats is killing my vibe. No longer
Speaker 2: serves beats in the shree mommy, So you're just gonna
Speaker 2: completely alter the ingredients? Where TF are the beats? Like
Speaker 2: this goes on and on and on, But like what
Speaker 2: happens when that kind of ingredient is no longer available?
Speaker 2: Is it a seasonal choice? Is a supply choice? Like,
Speaker 2: clearly there is some customer demand for beats.
Speaker 4: First of all, I love that there's this much passion
Speaker 4: around beats, which which is really incredible. But you know,
Speaker 4: our menu evolves quite a bit, and this is related
Speaker 4: to a big menu launch we did about two months
Speaker 4: ago with a new category on our menu called protein plates,
Speaker 4: So launching these more center of plate protein plates that
Speaker 4: have grains and protein and veg and no lettuce so
Speaker 4: not a salad, and really thinking about just you know,
Speaker 4: a completely different occasion for customers and new customers. And
Speaker 4: this is based on a lot of customer feedback. We
Speaker 4: heard about options they wish they had at Sweet Green
Speaker 4: or just out there. In general, whenever we add things
Speaker 4: to the menu, we also do remove things, Okay, otherwise.
Speaker 2: Is that just to like streamline and keep count locations.
Speaker 4: This idea of ski rationalization and just efficiency for an
Speaker 4: operation for your prep for just the number of ingredients
Speaker 4: you have in your restaurant, And if we just kept
Speaker 4: adding a couple of things every year, you'd wake up
Speaker 4: ten years later having way too many ingredients, way too
Speaker 4: complex an operation, and it.
Speaker 2: Would take customers seven minutes to order now instead.
Speaker 1: Of I'm surprised though about the beach because one of
Speaker 1: the stories I remember from years ago was that Sweet
Speaker 1: Green teamed up with the rapper Kendrick Lamar for a
Speaker 1: salad called bes Don't Kill My Vibe.
Speaker 4: That was that was the reference in that.
Speaker 1: Yah yeah, and the Verge headline I ate a salad
Speaker 1: named after Kendrick Lamar song anyway. But so actually this
Speaker 1: reason an interesting question. I mean, I like Sweet Green,
Speaker 1: I go there. Sometimes I go to Chipotle. Sometimes Chipotle
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to change it's I mean never once in
Speaker 1: a while it adds, don't have a new meat, something
Speaker 1: really similar for the decade or however long. Why is
Speaker 1: it important to switch it up?
Speaker 4: You know, today we have two hundred twenty restaurants in
Speaker 4: twenty states, and we're continuing to grow into different parts
Speaker 4: of the country and really broaden who our customer is
Speaker 4: and who we can serve, which is really exciting and
Speaker 4: so for us, aside from just the seasonality in our
Speaker 4: ethos and really wanting to celebrate incredible produce and ingredients
Speaker 4: as they come in and out of season at peak
Speaker 4: of freshness, it's important for us to just keep evolving
Speaker 4: and broadening. You know, the addition of protein plates for
Speaker 4: us was about creating a new occasion and attracting a
Speaker 4: new consumer that maybe doesn't want to eat a salad,
Speaker 4: or our existing customers that maybe don't want a salad
Speaker 4: every day. And you know, especially one of the things
Speaker 4: we've been hearing from our consumers, I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: we're reading and seeing all the same things that you
Speaker 4: all are in the world around value and just the
Speaker 4: consumer wallet and what they're feeling right now. And customers
Speaker 4: certainly want value more than ever now. And so as
Speaker 4: we think about places in the world today to get quick, clean, delicious,
Speaker 4: healthy dinner options and the convenience and a price that
Speaker 4: makes sense, you know, it's it's not easy, and so
Speaker 4: for us to launch something like protein plates, it's what
Speaker 4: our customers are telling us they would love for dinner.
Speaker 4: And so to have you know, between fifteen and sixteen
Speaker 4: bucks a plate of you know, clean, pseudo free cooked
Speaker 4: proteins and grains that is hardy and delicious really appealed
Speaker 4: to our consumers and is striking a cord where they
Speaker 4: are right now.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned the number of stores that you have,
Speaker 2: and I think you are rolling out quite a bit
Speaker 2: outside of the traditional urban centers, so Midtown, Manhattan, LA.
Speaker 2: Those sorts of places do you find as you open
Speaker 2: stores outside of cities that tastes are different there versus say,
Speaker 2: a midtown Manhattan. Is that part of the reason why
Speaker 2: you've you know, unveiled the new menu.
Speaker 4: Yes. Overall, you know, I would say it's been exciting
Speaker 4: for us to really broaden where Swee Green is and
Speaker 4: who we can serve. And so as we do that,
Speaker 4: broadening the menu is a really exciting objective. And that
Speaker 4: doesn't just mean adding new categories like protein plates. You know,
Speaker 4: over the past year we've also added some really incredible
Speaker 4: flavors and ingredients on our menu, things like, you know,
Speaker 4: a really clean barbecue sauce in a barbecue chicken plate
Speaker 4: and salad that we made with a chef in Chicago
Speaker 4: named Charlie McKenna who's the world champion of barbecue sauce,
Speaker 4: and we made a version of his sauce with no
Speaker 4: refined sugars and according to our ethos and it is delicious,
Speaker 4: and so thinking about broader flavors and ingredients, more protein
Speaker 4: at the center of the plate. The protein plates we
Speaker 4: did launch have up to fifty grams of protein per plate,
Speaker 4: which the focus on protein right now for consumers is
Speaker 4: really really big. And so we heard that.
Speaker 1: From our protein to hot right now.
Speaker 4: Yes, protein is very hot right now. And ultimately, like
Speaker 4: anything at Sweet Green, you can come and customize and
Speaker 4: create what you want. So if you want double protein
Speaker 4: or no protein, you can really create the mil you want.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about the intersection of plate design with
Speaker 1: the food inflation that we've seen over the last few years.
Speaker 1: I have to imagine that, you know, twenty fourteen, twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: early in Sweet Green era, it probably just wasn't much
Speaker 1: of a constraint, and I imagine that it's a lot
Speaker 1: trickier now or maybe more of like an engineering or
Speaker 1: puzzle problem to solve. Like, Okay, food has gotten a
Speaker 1: lot more expensive, and so given these constraints and given
Speaker 1: the desire to like have an economical price point, you
Speaker 1: have to like solve for X. Talk about plate design
Speaker 1: in the era of higher commodity costs.
Speaker 4: You know, for us, as we have scaled and now
Speaker 4: that we're at a certain size versus you know, ten
Speaker 4: years ago, it's not just about price and design, and
Speaker 4: I can talk about that, but it's also about just
Speaker 4: creating more resilience in our supply chain. So when we
Speaker 4: do launch something like olive oil or sources an ingredient.
Speaker 4: You know, we have to think about it at a
Speaker 4: much different scale and thinking about having secondary and tertiary
Speaker 4: sources and and so you know, when you have fifty
Speaker 4: restaurants versus a couple of hundred, just having the resiliency
Speaker 4: in the supply chain is more critical than ever. But
Speaker 4: you know, for us, engineering and designing a menu and
Speaker 4: a plate in these entrees is really starts with a
Speaker 4: ton of time spent with our customer understanding and not
Speaker 4: just existing customers, but prospective customers, people that don't to
Speaker 4: Sweet Green, or people that have heard about it and
Speaker 4: have never come, or people that have never heard about it,
Speaker 4: so really understanding what would drive intend to purchase for
Speaker 4: them and what appeals to them. And then you know,
Speaker 4: then we take that's kind of the science side. Then
Speaker 4: we take the art side and understand, you know, what
Speaker 4: we think is exciting in food in our supply chain,
Speaker 4: what flavors we want to really talk about and celebrate,
Speaker 4: and we marry those two things, and we do a
Speaker 4: lot of customer testing, So we put a lot of
Speaker 4: products in front of customers to truly understand how it
Speaker 4: makes them feel and how the flavors work. And then ultimately,
Speaker 4: for us, when you talk about inflation and price, we
Speaker 4: focus a lot on price value. So you know, we
Speaker 4: spend all this time sourcing really high quality ingredients, creating
Speaker 4: this experience in the restaurants where our team members are
Speaker 4: taking those ingredients, prepping them from scratch and creating this fresh,
Speaker 4: incredible product that then you have all these channels to
Speaker 4: interact with, so the convenience of whether it's our app
Speaker 4: or the pickup shelves, and so it's not just about
Speaker 4: the price of your menu, it's also the price value
Speaker 4: and so making sure that whatever the customer is paying,
Speaker 4: they feel like it's worth it and the value is there.
Speaker 4: And so that's why so much of it for us
Speaker 4: is really communicating all the work that goes into the
Speaker 4: quality of our ingredients and getting credit for that. And
Speaker 4: all of oil Change was one of those examples where
Speaker 4: we really want to tell this story. And you know,
Speaker 4: for us, we were the first national change to really
Speaker 4: use clean oils and talk about it, and so you know,
Speaker 4: we're excited to see if that continues to spread in
Speaker 4: the industry, if other folks will do that, and there
Speaker 4: are some other great, you know concepts out there talking
Speaker 4: about this, but at scale, we haven't really seen that.
Speaker 4: So it's exciting to see and talk about those things.
Speaker 4: So ultimately customers can come to Sweet Green and say, Okay,
Speaker 4: this feels worth it the values here for what I'm paying.
Speaker 2: Nick, you keep mentioning scale, which you know fair enough.
Speaker 2: You're still a young company and you're still clearly growing.
Speaker 2: But I guess I'm curious, like how important is scale
Speaker 2: to the overall strategy to achieve profitability? And I think
Speaker 2: you were profitable in a recent quarter on an adjusted
Speaker 2: ebit daw basis, so like there is some progress there,
Speaker 2: But do you need to get to a certain in
Speaker 2: size in order to have pricing power in the market
Speaker 2: for things like ingredients or maybe even labor in order
Speaker 2: to start making profits on a sort of regular basis.
Speaker 4: You know, scale is definitely important. And you know, as
Speaker 4: we have made so many incredible investments over the last
Speaker 4: few years in our technology, our supply chain, continuing to
Speaker 4: leverage our GNA and our home office to really you know,
Speaker 4: create that path of profitability. We have had two quarters
Speaker 4: of adjustity bit of profitability, so we are excited about
Speaker 4: the progress and well on our way. And you know,
Speaker 4: but when you talk about scale, you know, two hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty something restaurants sounds big, and it certainly would
Speaker 4: have sounded big to me a few years ago, but
Speaker 4: it is still very small relative to the opportunity we
Speaker 4: have in fast food and in our category. And you
Speaker 4: look at so many of these larger competitors in there
Speaker 4: are thousands, if not tens of thousands of restaurants, and
Speaker 4: so sixteen years in two hundred twenty restaurants, we still
Speaker 4: think we are very early in our journey, and so
Speaker 4: we're excited to build sustained and profitable growth and really,
Speaker 4: you know, in this time, more than ever, being really
Speaker 4: disciplined about the growth. You know, we opened in five
Speaker 4: new states in the past twelve to eighteen months and
Speaker 4: bringing speakering to communities and states where we probably rewind
Speaker 4: ten years ago, maybe didn't think we'd get to.
Speaker 1: What's Where's that?
Speaker 4: You know, We've had really exciting growth in the Midwest,
Speaker 4: so opening in Indiana, in Michigan, in you know, all
Speaker 4: over the Chicago area, and it's been really exciting to
Speaker 4: see in Minneapolis, really excited to see our growth there
Speaker 4: and how the brand was received, and that's a really
Speaker 4: exciting growth there also.
Speaker 2: How seasonal are sales in places like the Midwest. I'm
Speaker 2: just curious when it's really cold, I personally do not
Speaker 2: crave a salad, although I admire your objectives to make
Speaker 2: craveable options for presumably year round, But do you see
Speaker 2: like a big dip in places like Minneapolis in the winter.
Speaker 1: Unlike say La where I'm at. Yeah, that's all people
Speaker 1: want to eat three hundred and sixty five days a year.
Speaker 4: You know, we've had one full winter in the broader Midwest.
Speaker 4: But we do see seasonality, right, and I think a
Speaker 4: lot of restaurants do. But I think with our product,
Speaker 4: especially the South category, we do see more seasonality that
Speaker 4: affects it. We have. You know, actually the larger category
Speaker 4: on our menu is more the warm bowls, so things
Speaker 4: that have hardier grains and more proteins in them. And then, honestly,
Speaker 4: that was part of the intention of the protein plates
Speaker 4: was also to think about if you are a sweeperen
Speaker 4: eater and you've eaten, you know, a lot of salad,
Speaker 4: you know, once a week or twice a week in
Speaker 4: the summer and fall when winter hits and it's just
Speaker 4: one of those days where you want something a little hardier,
Speaker 4: or you want something for dinner and it just isn't
Speaker 4: a salad even you know, the greatest of salad eaters
Speaker 4: don't want to eat that every single day. And so
Speaker 4: really starting to create that range and breath on our
Speaker 4: menu for existing and new consumers that just hits a
Speaker 4: different need state. It's satiating in a different way. And
Speaker 4: so it's been really exciting to see even early on
Speaker 4: just the effect on dinner and then now as we
Speaker 4: enter the winter, to really see how protein plates will perform.
Speaker 4: We just launched it six weeks ago, but the signs
Speaker 4: have been really exciting so far.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Midwest a little bit more specifically.
Speaker 1: You recently opened up a robotic concept in Naperville, Illinois,
Speaker 1: in which robots make the sale it and I have
Speaker 1: to imagine that there's a lot of interest in a
Speaker 1: lot of people these days for service automation, given tightness
Speaker 1: of the labor markets, etc. What is the hardest part
Speaker 1: about automating the process of making a salad.
Speaker 4: So we did open our first automated sweet green in Naperville,
Speaker 4: Illinois about six months ago. We acquired an incredibly talented
Speaker 4: group of individuals with a company called Spice two years
Speaker 4: ago and have since started building the Sweet Green version
Speaker 4: of that machine called the Infinite Kitchen, and so we
Speaker 4: launched it six months ago. And really so much about
Speaker 4: designing this format and that restaurant was you know, the
Speaker 4: technology was really important in the actual automation and the robotics,
Speaker 4: but it was more about the full experience that wraps
Speaker 4: it and thinking about today they experience our customers are
Speaker 4: going from where they walk into a restaurant. You know,
Speaker 4: they're pointing at their ingredients on a line, interacting with
Speaker 4: a team member, but also thinking about the friction that
Speaker 4: exists in this existing format of I'm sure you've been
Speaker 4: into a Sweet Green at peak lunch and it can
Speaker 4: be intense, right There's a line out the door. People
Speaker 4: are trying to move fast, people want to order, things
Speaker 4: are flying, things are going fast, and you know, our
Speaker 4: team members, who do an incredible job, you know, have
Speaker 4: to be fast, friendly and accurate at the same time,
Speaker 4: which is really hard. And so for us, you know,
Speaker 4: understanding what we love about our current format and experience
Speaker 4: and what friction we want to create. So much of
Speaker 4: the work was more around the experience we wanted to
Speaker 4: build around the automation and thinking about the different roles
Speaker 4: and how the team members play a role that is
Speaker 4: actually more around hospitality and less surround assembly. So the
Speaker 4: infinite kitchen assembles the meal, but our team members now
Speaker 4: get to really spend their time interacting with customers more
Speaker 4: focused on hospitality, maybe talking to them about our supply chain.
Speaker 1: I just want to drive home this question though, of
Speaker 1: like the Salid construction challenge, because especially I have to imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, the hospitality component for say like restaurants that
Speaker 1: are making doing a lot of money on delivery, so
Speaker 1: it's not as important. What did the change? I was
Speaker 1: in San Francisco one time and I went to a
Speaker 1: robotic coffee shop. It was truly a terrible experience, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know, they just I can't imagine how they
Speaker 1: screwed it up so badly, and I don't think it's
Speaker 1: there anymore. But what is the actual constraint? Because I
Speaker 1: watched the video of how the Naperville thing works looks
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward, etc. So from a sort of like workflow
Speaker 1: operations standpoint, a lot of economists businesses must be really
Speaker 1: interested in how much service sector work can be automated.
Speaker 4: What makes it hard, well, you know, to your point,
Speaker 4: I do believe that fast forward, in the next decade
Speaker 4: or beyond, automation will play a role in food right
Speaker 4: and in restaurants. I think it will have to, and
Speaker 4: I think it shifts that team member experience, it shifts
Speaker 4: the experience for the customer. And what makes it hard
Speaker 4: is just the technology. There's no off the shelf solutions
Speaker 4: don't exist today, and every restaurant has different menus of
Speaker 4: the different ingredients that need to be handled differently. I
Speaker 4: think you're starting to see, you know, there are many
Speaker 4: automated solutions in coffee, they're some in pizza. You know,
Speaker 4: you're starting to see some more spot automation where they
Speaker 4: can do one task, you know, or one discrete task.
Speaker 4: The Infinite kitchen for us that was built at Sweet Green, it,
Speaker 4: you know, assembles the majority of the meal and then
Speaker 4: there's a finishing station where our team member gets to
Speaker 4: finish the bowl or plate with you know, the fresh
Speaker 4: herbs or the piece of protein or a sauce, and
Speaker 4: then it's handed to the customer by the team members.
Speaker 4: So the idea was of the transaction even though your
Speaker 4: bowl is mostly assembled by this automated machine starts and
Speaker 4: ends with human hands, and there is this opportunity for
Speaker 4: more hospitality in a commer environment. And there's all these
Speaker 4: other benefits that really start to create a ton of
Speaker 4: value for the customer on perfect accuracy in the machine,
Speaker 4: perfect portioning, perfect temperature control speed.
Speaker 1: You know, so this is coming, this is coming.
Speaker 4: We're actually opening our second one in a few days
Speaker 4: in California.
Speaker 2: What about simpler automation? And I think when we hear
Speaker 2: salad making robots, you know, everyone has a vision of
Speaker 2: a robot chopping up let us or something like that.
Speaker 2: But you could have automation on things like salad dressing
Speaker 2: so you can pre mix the salad dressings and maybe
Speaker 2: that saves costs. So something a little bit less high tech.
Speaker 4: I guess yeah. I think there will be a number
Speaker 4: of solutions from small, discrete tasks that are automated to
Speaker 4: larger you know, full concepts automated or the next couple years.
Speaker 4: And you know, like I said, you're seeing that today,
Speaker 4: which is exciting. Over the past decade, there was a
Speaker 4: ton of funding that went into so many of these startups,
Speaker 4: and I think the environment's a little tougher today obviously
Speaker 4: in that world. That's what we were really excited to
Speaker 4: partner with and acquire the Spice team because they're brilliant
Speaker 4: and the technology they had built was really wonderful, and
Speaker 4: so marrying that with our brand and our food has
Speaker 4: really been an incredible combination. But you know, today the
Speaker 4: Infinite Kitchen does do assembly, dressing, dispensing, and mixing, so
Speaker 4: it has it does the majority of the process and
Speaker 4: then a few things are finished at the end by hand.
Speaker 4: But it's been really incredible to watch that experience and
Speaker 4: how consumers are interacting with it.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: labor market, and I think I read in your last
Speaker 1: earning call, Munch like much of the economy things you're
Speaker 1: getting a little bit easier, looks like on the hiring side,
Speaker 1: on the wage side, etc. But what I'm curious about
Speaker 1: in particular is during the sort of peak of the
Speaker 1: labor market Titaness maybe twenty one early twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: when so many companies were expressing frustration about hiring, how
Speaker 1: do you sort of keep up a minimum quality expectation.
Speaker 1: You talked about that hospitality and people having a certain
Speaker 1: expectation of what it's going to be like when they
Speaker 1: go into a sweet green and at the time of
Speaker 1: high churn, difficulty hiring, et cetera. Talk to us about
Speaker 1: the process of maintaining that When I imagine an employee who's
Speaker 1: been there three years is much better than the person
Speaker 1: who's been on the job three days, how do you
Speaker 1: maintain that quality at a time of a lot of
Speaker 1: I guess, very green, fresh employees.
Speaker 4: Great question, you know, I think the last couple of
Speaker 4: years was really challenging in so many ways. I think,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously, at the peak of COVID, so much
Speaker 4: of the operation and the experience for a team member,
Speaker 4: not only the customer, but for the team member was
Speaker 4: totally flipped around, right, wearing masks while you're working, having
Speaker 4: these plexi screens, and having all this different like safety protocol,
Speaker 4: which was all there for a reason, and like you know,
Speaker 4: we had to move fast on so much of that stuff,
Speaker 4: but it did alter and shift the team member experience
Speaker 4: pretty radically. And I forget the exact number, but our
Speaker 4: industry did lose millions of workers during that time, and
Speaker 4: so it was really challenging. What's really been exciting about
Speaker 4: this year is as we have seen labor markets ease
Speaker 4: is you know, we have seen our turnover come down,
Speaker 4: which has been really exciting and to your point, having
Speaker 4: team members that are here and passionate about the mission
Speaker 4: and you know, being developed and growing in the organization
Speaker 4: is just a wonderful thing for both sides. But whenever
Speaker 4: the labor markets are hard or even now, the focus
Speaker 4: for us is really on just like we listen to
Speaker 4: our customers, spending as much time listening to our team
Speaker 4: members and understanding how we can better the team member experience.
Speaker 4: And that's everything from uniforms to wage, to training modules
Speaker 4: to physical experience in the restaurants, and so we spend
Speaker 4: a lot of time really understanding how we can consistently
Speaker 4: improve the team member experience and just continue to invest
Speaker 4: in them.
Speaker 2: So the other thing that seems to get people worked
Speaker 2: up on the internet, aside from seed, oils and beats,
Speaker 2: is tipping.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, an iPad.
Speaker 2: Yes on a screen, And I think this is something
Speaker 2: you recently started incorporating into the business model. So I
Speaker 2: have so many questions on this issue, and we've been
Speaker 2: meaning to do an episode exclusively on tipping for a while,
Speaker 2: but we haven't quite gotten around to it. But first
Speaker 2: of all, why did you decide to do that? Second
Speaker 2: of all, what's been the customer response? And I guess
Speaker 2: like third of all, the question that everyone asks on
Speaker 2: this issue is always why are the customers subsidizing the
Speaker 2: labor costs of a company?
Speaker 4: Great question? And when I talk about spending a lot
Speaker 4: of time understanding and talking to the team members and
Speaker 4: just understanding the landscape out there, tipping was the number
Speaker 4: one thing we really heard from our team members that
Speaker 4: they value and that you know quite often have at
Speaker 4: other places. And so you know, the back end of
Speaker 4: how you actually bring that to life can be pretty complex.
Speaker 4: It's different state by state, different channel by channel, with
Speaker 4: whether you know whether it's on the app or and
Speaker 4: person or so integrating all the different technology behind the
Speaker 4: scenes to bring that to life is pretty complex. So
Speaker 4: I mean shout out to our tech team and our CTO,
Speaker 4: but it was a pretty big project. And what was
Speaker 4: the change tipping adding?
Speaker 2: They didn't have it before where you could optionally adding.
Speaker 4: Tipping for our team members and keep going, Yeah, show.
Speaker 2: Does this mean you're not tipping your sweet green makers?
Speaker 2: You haven't noticed?
Speaker 1: Can I don't listen? So I haven't been going on
Speaker 1: the sweet green light. It's just anyway, keep going. That's
Speaker 1: the only reason I hadn't.
Speaker 4: Noticed have to get you back to try to play.
Speaker 1: It will come back from the Yeah, keep going.
Speaker 4: And so, you know, this is something we constantly heard
Speaker 4: from our team members when we wanted to round tables,
Speaker 4: and we just you know, spend time with them understanding
Speaker 4: how we can improve the team member value, prop and experience.
Speaker 4: And so we spent a year building thiscent And like
Speaker 4: I said that, the back end of how this comes
Speaker 4: to life is pretty complex.
Speaker 2: Uh. I had no idea it was that complicated because
Speaker 2: I always assumed like it was something provided by like
Speaker 2: the payment vendor, and you could just like plug and play.
Speaker 4: You know, it depends what you're existing tech infrastructures of
Speaker 4: who your payment provider is, who the pos is, you know,
Speaker 4: what your at, what your app is built on. You know,
Speaker 4: state We're in twenty states, so the state by state
Speaker 4: regulation makes it all so more complex. But you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's a pretty hairy thing to build, but our
Speaker 4: team built it. They did it brilliantly. We spent a
Speaker 4: lot of time talking to team members and customers to
Speaker 4: understand even the details of the experience of what are
Speaker 4: the prompts, what you know, how these would make you feel,
Speaker 4: and did a test and it's been really incredible to
Speaker 4: see the results so far. I mean, our team members
Speaker 4: are really pleased. It's adding you know, a great amount
Speaker 4: to their to their wage. And the most exciting thing
Speaker 4: is we do believe there is inherently like a service flywheel.
Speaker 4: Hear right, So team members know that, you know, the
Speaker 4: hospitality is incentivized, and so it makes them care about
Speaker 4: that customer experience even more.
Speaker 2: But I guess the thing I don't get about optional
Speaker 2: tipping for something like a bowl or a salad chain
Speaker 2: is like, first of all, you know, you talked about
Speaker 2: the importance of hospitality training anyway, so presumably like everyone
Speaker 2: should be really friendly. But then I'm also tipping, first off,
Speaker 2: before I've even eaten it, and it's hard for me
Speaker 2: to judge like the quality of the salad bowl construction
Speaker 2: before I've actually tasted it. So I guess probably, like
Speaker 2: a lot of people, I feel guilty enough that I
Speaker 2: will do the optional tipping, but like I also feel
Speaker 2: a little bit annoyed about it because I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what I'm tipping for.
Speaker 4: You know, that's a great point. I think for us,
Speaker 4: the experience is built in a way where you know,
Speaker 4: consumers can self select into tipping or not tipping, and
Speaker 4: we didn't want to add that pressure. And so you know,
Speaker 4: one of the prompts is no tip, and it's you know,
Speaker 4: I think you go to some places today and it's
Speaker 4: like thirty thirty five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, the minimum is now like forty percent
Speaker 2: or I.
Speaker 1: Saw one where it was like twenty five twenty thirty
Speaker 1: and so they like switched up the order or something
Speaker 1: like that. So the button were you into, it would anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so for us, there's a lot of intentionality
Speaker 4: and all the details there. And funny enough, we're also
Speaker 4: getting a lot of requests from customers that wanted to
Speaker 4: tip that right, we're going into their sneakering every day,
Speaker 4: that had their favorite team member that had you know,
Speaker 4: they were there were just regulars and they said, I
Speaker 4: wanted to I want to, like I want to connect
Speaker 4: with my team members and reward them for the incredible
Speaker 4: service and they make my day. And so for us,
Speaker 4: this was just something we you know, we were really
Speaker 4: excited to launch, both for team members and customers, and
Speaker 4: we think the experience we built around it is really
Speaker 4: thoughtful and intentional to let customer self select into whatever
Speaker 4: journey they want there.
Speaker 1: You know, as Tracy mentioned, this is one of those
Speaker 1: things that on the Internet people are really annoyed by.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that the employees would like it because
Speaker 1: it seems like almost total, you know, pretty straightforward goes
Speaker 1: right to the wage line. Have you seen any pushback?
Speaker 1: Did the whining online translate into any less activity?
Speaker 4: You know, it's still pretty It's still pretty early for us,
Speaker 4: so we are still learning and watching. So far it's
Speaker 4: been really positive. Like anything we were all out, whether
Speaker 4: it's menu or features like tipping or you know, we're
Speaker 4: learning and evolving as we need to. But so far
Speaker 4: it's been really positive.
Speaker 2: I recently learned there's an actual terminology for the idea
Speaker 2: of companies becoming more sophisticated with their pricing options. It's
Speaker 2: called price pack architecture.
Speaker 1: I never heard of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hadn't heard it either, But I do feel
Speaker 2: like this is becoming more of a thing for companies,
Speaker 2: where like the goal is to offer a suite of
Speaker 2: price options so you have a cheaper thing for people
Speaker 2: who want that, but you also have the premium products.
Speaker 2: You also now have the option to add twenty percent
Speaker 2: onto you know, the cost in return for service is
Speaker 2: that something that you're you're mindful of as a growth company.
Speaker 4: It is, And as we really expand all these different
Speaker 4: places around the country and really get excited about welcoming
Speaker 4: new customers into Sweet Green into the funnel, the pricing
Speaker 4: strategy is really built on just having that range of
Speaker 4: prices so entry points for different people. You know, we
Speaker 4: have a bowl on our menu that starts under ten
Speaker 4: bucks in every market, So if you want to self
Speaker 4: select into that, you can. If you want to do
Speaker 4: triple protein and add everything into your bowl or plate,
Speaker 4: you can get you know, a very expensive plate that
Speaker 4: fits your needs and fits what you're looking for. But
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, it also does come
Speaker 4: back to the idea of price value that I talked
Speaker 4: about so often. Customers, you know, what we hear and
Speaker 4: what we know is that regardless of the price they're paying,
Speaker 4: it's more about was it worth that price? And so
Speaker 4: but the range making sure that you know, consumers can
Speaker 4: self select into whatever price they want, and you know,
Speaker 4: it also connects their frequency. We have customers that are
Speaker 4: coming to Spee Green quite often. We have a loyalty
Speaker 4: program that has a subscription piece as well for those
Speaker 4: highly frequent guests. That creates some value there as well.
Speaker 1: Tracy, now that you're getting into deadlifting, you got to
Speaker 1: get the protein plate with the triple protein.
Speaker 2: I'm not getting into deadlifting at all right now. My
Speaker 2: capacity to deadlift is absolutely zero. So for people who
Speaker 2: don't know, I have like a tendonitis type thing that
Speaker 2: is flaring up again and I can barely like lift
Speaker 2: my phone, let alone weights. But I appreciate all the
Speaker 2: guys online who are telling me to use straps when like,
Speaker 2: just to be clear, I am not going to be
Speaker 2: deadlifting at all in the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I guess you don't need the triple protein.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about introed this conversation by saying, what's great
Speaker 1: about a bowl of anything is I can eat it
Speaker 1: at my desk in my office while and sort of
Speaker 1: just stare at the screen and consume calories. What have
Speaker 1: you seen in terms of work from home offices. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you did not anticipate the degree of working from
Speaker 1: home and the changing of urban centers and delivery, all
Speaker 1: these different things when you started it, And obviously the
Speaker 1: work environment in twenty twenty three is very different than
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. What does that meant for Sweet Green in
Speaker 1: the business model?
Speaker 4: You know, over the last couple of years, we have
Speaker 4: seen our consumer shift around a lot, just like everyone
Speaker 4: in the industry. What was fortunate for us was, even
Speaker 4: pre COVID, we had started shifting a lot of our
Speaker 4: pipeline and our growth into suburban centers. And for the
Speaker 4: past few years, the majority of our growth and openings
Speaker 4: have been in more suburban residential areas, so our footprint
Speaker 4: has become more balanced. And over the last couple of years,
Speaker 4: there's been certain assumptions that you know, everyone has made
Speaker 4: around return to work and what's going to look like,
Speaker 4: and I think the world is kind of we've all
Speaker 4: been wrong. So I think we've just accepted that where
Speaker 4: it is today is maybe where it's days, and we're
Speaker 4: building our business around that. And what's really exciting is
Speaker 4: seeing I think, as we brought in our menu and
Speaker 4: we have all these channels, things like delivery and pick up,
Speaker 4: just seeing people fall into their new rhythms and behaviors
Speaker 4: wherever they are working or living, and so it's been
Speaker 4: really exciting to see the strength of our suburban restaurants
Speaker 4: and seeing people really incorporate that into their routine versus
Speaker 4: before it might have just been the place they get
Speaker 4: lunch in their office.
Speaker 2: So we started this conversation talking about hatred for seed oils,
Speaker 2: and you mentioned that proteins are becoming a thing as hot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're very hot. Right now, what's the next thing on
Speaker 2: the horizon, like the next food related matter that we
Speaker 2: can all obsess over.
Speaker 4: You know? For us, I do think oils and the
Speaker 4: fat quality. I think it will be a huge conversation
Speaker 4: that will grow, and that's why we decided to make
Speaker 4: the investment. I think if you look at even the
Speaker 4: data of the caloric consumption and how much of the
Speaker 4: average person's daily calorie intake is coming from these highly
Speaker 4: processed oils, it has increased so much in the past
Speaker 4: couple of decades, and it's in everything. So I think
Speaker 4: that visibility and transparency for consumers is going to be
Speaker 4: a huge topic of conversation. And obviously, when you connectet
Speaker 4: to like just the metabolic state of things in this
Speaker 4: country and chronic disease, I think there's a much bigger conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I had the same thought when you
Speaker 1: said metabolic. But how are you thinking about anticipating the
Speaker 1: world in which more and more of your customers may
Speaker 1: be on ozempic or a gop one? And I have
Speaker 1: to imagine, unlike some other you know, you're probably a
Speaker 1: higher end consumer, typically people who can perhaps afford it
Speaker 1: more easily at the current price points. Have you seen
Speaker 1: anything now or more importantly, perhaps, are you thinking of
Speaker 1: anything strategically in terms of a world in which many
Speaker 1: more people are on these drugs, you.
Speaker 4: Know, just like anything that grows really quickly, we're watching
Speaker 4: it and learning and trying to understand. I think what
Speaker 4: it's really exciting for the type of food we serve
Speaker 4: is whether you're on something like ozembic, or you're you know,
Speaker 4: just trying to create a different lifestyle, or just you
Speaker 4: want food that makes you feel good. Sweet green kind
Speaker 4: of fits all those use cases. I think folks that
Speaker 4: are on a product like ozempic or probably cutting out
Speaker 4: more of the higher chloric less you know, clean food options.
Speaker 4: And so we're watching it, we're learning, we're you know,
Speaker 4: we're trying to understand how our consumer is shifting. But ultimately,
Speaker 4: I think what's really exciting is as our menu gets broader,
Speaker 4: I think it creates more reasons for customers to come
Speaker 4: to Secred, not just for health or for you know,
Speaker 4: caloric or metabolic reasons. But that ends up being like
Speaker 4: a plus on the back end. They eating something that
Speaker 4: is cravable and that you know, satiating, but that also
Speaker 4: is good for you.
Speaker 2: I feel like we have to get Sweet Green for
Speaker 2: lunch now, it's like mandatory.
Speaker 1: Definitely. Yes, I'm sorry, I haven't been to one a
Speaker 1: few years. I'll start going, So where.
Speaker 4: Are you going to lunch?
Speaker 1: There's a knockoff Cova a couple of blocks away. I
Speaker 1: forget what it's called. It's just it's like the same thing,
Speaker 1: it's a little worse. And I go to the Dig.
Speaker 1: The dig it is so mainly because it's like literally love.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I want to I'll check out.
Speaker 4: I'll go to this. I say that as a broader
Speaker 4: common of the rest of the industry, a.
Speaker 1: Little subtweet of the industry. Now, that was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, of course, Tracy.
Speaker 1: That was fun. We should go we definitely we should
Speaker 1: go to a Sweet Green to and test it out.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get one of those triple protein bowls
Speaker 1: to max it out.
Speaker 2: I have a real craving for protein now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a major protein craving right now, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to put the max tip option.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That was a really interesting conversation and we kind of
Speaker 2: hit a lot of the big talking points in consumer goods. Well,
Speaker 2: is it a good in food right now? Yeah, like
Speaker 2: the idea of labor costs, the addition of tipping, and
Speaker 2: how maybe that helps a little bit on the labor
Speaker 2: market tightness. Although, as Nick said, like the worst of
Speaker 2: that seems to be over the sophistication in pricing. I
Speaker 2: feel like that's a real trend, and it is true.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many of the apps you've signed
Speaker 2: up for, but it is true that you can get
Speaker 2: a lot lower prices through like the loyalty programs for
Speaker 2: a lot of chains.
Speaker 1: Right now, just so lazy put in your email.
Speaker 4: You should do it.
Speaker 1: It's it's download an app. It's worth it. Joe, all right,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe I will no, But that was that was
Speaker 1: a really fun conversation. You know, it is pretty striking
Speaker 1: to switch to olive oils given that chart yeah, a
Speaker 1: wild chart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it will be interesting to see whether or not
Speaker 2: it normalizes and how quickly.
Speaker 1: Also, I want to do more tracy on the roboticization
Speaker 1: of services, especially at a delivery Uber Eeds, Seamless, all
Speaker 1: of these different grub hub whatever it's called. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't care about the hospitality experience in those conditions. Intuitively,
Speaker 1: you would think that there's a lot of opportunity and
Speaker 1: demand from the business side to find ways to automate
Speaker 1: the creation of people's lunches. But it really just like
Speaker 1: has not taken off so far at all. And like
Speaker 1: I said, I went into a coffee shop. Coaffee I
Speaker 1: would think should be really like the easy one, and
Speaker 1: it is a terrible experience. So I wanted to have
Speaker 1: a better understanding, like what really is the constraint? Is
Speaker 1: it scale? Is it the fact that there's nothing off
Speaker 1: the shelf? What isn't Just to.
Speaker 2: Be clear, it hasn't taken off in the US. I
Speaker 2: mean I remember, like twenty years ago in Tokyo you
Speaker 2: had robotic servers like you would actually order through. It
Speaker 2: wasn't an app back then, but it was like a
Speaker 2: little machine at the table and then someone would bring
Speaker 2: it out to you, and that was like a fairly
Speaker 2: normal thing at Izakayah's, but it's taken a lot longer.
Speaker 1: The assembly side st Yeah.
Speaker 2: The assembly side seems difficult, but again, like there's gradations
Speaker 2: of assembly. So you can have like a giant mixer
Speaker 2: that's mixing salad dressing and that seems fairly easy to do,
Speaker 2: versus like an actual, you know, Jetson style robot that's
Speaker 2: like washing and cutting up the lettuce.
Speaker 1: We gotta do more robotics. I feel like service. Like
Speaker 1: this is a sort of fact about the economy, which
Speaker 1: is that manufactured goods tend to see productivity gains over time,
Speaker 1: and services tend to have stagnant productivity, at least as
Speaker 1: far as the best we can measure them. But if
Speaker 1: we had like a sort of chat GPT of robots,
Speaker 1: an actual Google, an actual good robot, which I don't
Speaker 1: think many exist so far, but if we had one,
Speaker 1: maybe we would actually see some productivity games.
Speaker 2: It is true there does seem to have been this
Speaker 2: like huge gap between the amount of money going into
Speaker 2: robotics versus the amount of money going into AI.
Speaker 4: Right, so we have all this.
Speaker 2: Artificial intelligence, but we don't actually have the like physical
Speaker 2: machinery to put some of it to use.
Speaker 1: Johnny five, Yeah, not feeling all right?
Speaker 2: Shall we leave it there?
Speaker 1: Let's leave it there.
Speaker 2: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Speaker 1: Follow Nicholas. He's at Nicholas where he is monitoring your
Speaker 1: tweets about seed oils. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at
Speaker 1: Carmen armand Dash Bennett at dashbod and Kale Brooks at Kalebrooks.
Speaker 1: And thank you to our producer Moses Ondam. From our
Speaker 1: Odlots content, go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd lots,
Speaker 1: where we have a blog transcript and the newsletter, and
Speaker 1: check out our discord Discord dot gg slash odd lots.
Speaker 2: And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you want us
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