All You Need to Know about Sweetgreen

It’s not often that a quick service food chain with just seventy-seven stores joins the illustrious company of industry giants like Starbucks and Dominos as one of the top ten most innovative food companies in the world. Sweetgreen is a brand that has achieved this incredible feat.

Describing itself as a destination for simple, seasonal, healthy food, the US company has become a “darling” of the venture capital world, raising $135 million to date from investors, creating “one of America’s sexiest startups”.

Founded in 2007, the brand has been lauded both by traditional media such as The New Yorker and Wall Street Journal, as well as tech titles including Inc.com and Entrepreneur magazine.

In this article, we explore the impressive achievements of this ambitious young brand, and its approach to both technology and loyalty.

The Original Sweetgreen Store in Washington, D.C.

Background

Three college friends – Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman, and Nathaniel Ru, all from entrepreneurial parents, met as freshmen in Georgetown University and became firm friends. With a shared love of tasty healthy food, they also believed that food service restaurants have become largely disconnected from their roots, from famers and even from the local community.

They developed a vision of a sustainable lifestyle brand, connecting with communities around food, which resonated with family and friends. Over forty of them invested in the business to provide the initial capital for the trio’s first store.

Since then the company has gone from strength to strength, resulting in a “cult explosion” that they attribute to a combination of discipline and an understanding of the dynamics of a technology start-up brand, to create a new “frontier” in the US food service industry.

Business Strategy

1) Sweetgreen exudes integrity – exactly what an increasing number of customers are demanding from brands. Whether as a consumer, or as an employee, key demographics such as millennials and Gen Z want to connect with brands they trust. Sweetgreen’s food ethos focuses on food that’s both regional and seasonal, with a clear brand promise to positively impact the communities they serve.

2) The brand’s marketing strategy meets consumers where they are – on social media. From their early days, the team has leveraged the power of relevant content, clever copy and beautiful imagery to “rock content marketing”.

3) The company doesn’t operate any franchise stores currently – preferring instead to own and operate its stores directly, supported by their team of over 3,500 staff.

4) Technology is a key pillar to their success. The chain has successfully re-structured its operations to allow customers to pre-order, pre-pay and completely “skip the line” using the Sweetgreen app. Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman, describes this as allowing the brand “to meet customers where they are”, and as well as opening an increasing number of restaurants, investing in technology is a key focus driving the company’s growth.

5) Sweetgreen has gone cashless is most of its stores – accepting only cards or the company’s app for payment. Three reasons were quoted for this decision which rolled out in 2017 – improved security and hygiene – but most importantly the ability to improve the speed of service in store.

The Sweetgreen app in the iTunes store.

Loyalty Strategy

1) As with most contemporary loyalty programmes, the Sweetgreen rewards and recognition programme is based on spend (not transactions).

2) There are three status levels or tiers – green members (who spend up to $100 in a year), gold members (who spend up to $1,000 a year) and black members (who spend up to $2,500 per year).

3) Rewards include both functional rewards (value back based on spend) and emotional rewards (designed to appeal to our softer side).

4) The basic reward is a $9 coupon rewards for every $99 spent within 120 days. Only orders placed using the app, online or scan to pay in-store count towards this spend.

5) Each members gets a birthday reward. It’s a $10 coupon and it’s valid for a full 30 days to use with nice messaging to say ‘your birthday meal is on us’. 

6) Tier benefits are designed to make members feel like family (Black members are told “we..may have even met your parents.”)

7) Other benefits include access to invite-only events such as exclusive tastings and merchandise and the services of the Sweetgreen concierge. Black members also get an exclusive private party for their ten closest friends!

Marketing Strategy

 

Passion X Purpose

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