Sweetgreen fights for farmers markets to outlive: ‘No more durable enterprise’ than farming

Sweetgreen is attempting to make sure the survival of farmers markets due to the important function they play locally and as a vital income stream for farmers.

Earlier this month, the fast-casual restaurant chain, based in 2007 by Nicolas Jammet, Nathaniel Ru and Jonathan Neman, introduced its assist for Meals Entry LA, a nonprofit that oversees eight Los Angeles farmers markets that have been susceptible to closing.

In a bid to protect them, Sweetgreen pledged to cowl the nonprofit’s working prices by means of 2025, which can assist maintain small-scale agriculture and assist meals and beverage entrepreneurs whereas enhancing meals safety in underserved neighborhoods.

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sweetgreen restaurant

Employees put together apples and avocados at a Sweetgreen restaurant in Boston Oct. 24, 2017.  (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)

Jammet, who serves because the chief idea officer, emphasised the significance of those markets, telling FOX Enterprise that, for many individuals, they’re typically the one locations the place recent meals is accessible. The markets, now financially supported by Sweetgreen, serve greater than 10,000 guests every week throughout the Los Angeles space. A few of them characteristic farmers that Sweetgreen depends on.

“Farmers markets have performed a vital function in how we’ve constructed, developed and found our personal meals ethos,” Jammet mentioned. 

Within the firm’s early days, Jammet and his co-founders regularly visited the Dupont Circle Farmers Market in Washington, D.C. It was the place they constructed direct relationships with native producers, which later “shaped the muse of Sweetgreen’s first menu,” Jammet mentioned.

Nic Jammet speaks

Nicolas Jammet, co-founder of Sweetgreen Inc., speaks through the Milken Institute World Convention in Beverly Hills, Calif., April 30, 2018.  (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)

The corporate nonetheless buys from the farmers it first constructed relationships with 15 years in the past, Jammet mentioned. 

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“Within the midst of inflation, it’s necessary for shoppers and companies to assist small meals growers and markets,” he added.

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A Sweetgreen restaurant in New York April 22, 2024. (Angus Mordant/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)

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Whereas he regularly hears how powerful the restaurant enterprise is, he mentioned “it’s approach more durable being a farmer.”

“There is not any enterprise more durable. And their margins could be so tight, and lots of them live season to season,” Jammet mentioned. “Typically I feel the farmers markets are the place farmers truly make most of their margin as a result of they’re shopping for and promoting direct to clients. So, it is a actually necessary income supply for lots of farmers.” 

Jennifer Grissom, government director of Meals Entry LA, mentioned these markets make it “potential for farmers to earn as much as 4 occasions greater than they’d by means of conventional grocery settings.” 

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