Dhru Purohit Show - The Truth About Seed Oils and How to Prioritize Protein with Nicolas Jammet

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

This episode is brought to you by Bioptimizers, Cozy Earth, and Sweetgreen.  When we hear "fast food," we often picture highly processed, questionably sourced ingredients. But in our hectic lives, we crave quick, wholesome options that boost longevity instead of fueling disease. Meet Nicolas Jammet, one of the masterminds behind Sweetgreen—a game-changing solution now thriving in countless locations nationwide. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Nicolas Jammet, Co-Founder and Chief Concept Officer of Sweetgreen, a healthy fast food restaurant that prides itself on creating quality food. Nicolas shares how and why Sweetgreen came about and why it was Sweetgreen’s mission to focus on creating with transparency. He also shares why Sweetgreen decided to shift away from seed oils and focus on quality fats and how Sweetgreen continues to be an innovator in the restaurant space.  Nicolas is the Co-Founder & Chief Concept Officer of Sweetgreen, the mission-driven restaurant brand that serves healthy food at scale. Sweetgreen’s vision is to be as ubiquitous as traditional fast food but far more transparent and honest. Nicolas has been recognized as a key innovator in food and business and was named Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.”  In this episode, Dhru and Nicolas dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): The shocking decision behind removing seed oils from Sweetgreen’s meals (2:24 / 2:24)  Are seed oils harmful (3:52 / 3:52) Innovation in the fast food industry space (19:20 / 16:43) The customer response from an innovative decision (23:30 / 21:08) The importance of high-quality protein and the benefits of eating protein (25:50 / 23:15) Working with regenerative growers (47:46 / 43:08) Collaboration with farmers (51:30 / 47:02) Avoiding sugar in dressings (54:35 / 50:05) Choosing the appropriate grains for Sweetgreen’s menu (56:52 / 52:00)  Core health principles (58:40 / 53:54) The why behind building Sweetgreen (1:03:35 / 58:00) The future of Sweetgreen (1:09:00 / 1:04:32) Advice for entrepreneurs ( 1:14:38 / 1:09:55) For more on Nicolas, follow him on Instagram and @nicolasjammet on Twitter/X. Start the New Year off right and dial in on your sleep. Go to bioptimizers.com/dhru now and enter promo code DHRU10 to get 10% off any order. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com and use code DHRUP. Find out more about Sweetgreen and their newest protein plates at www.sweetgreen.com. New Users of the sweet green app can use the code "Dhru5" for $5 off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, Drew Brod here. Today we have a fantastic episode with Nicholas Jamet. Nicholas Jamet is the co-founder and chief concept officer of Sweet Green. If you're not familiar with Sweet Green, they are a billion-dollar restaurant empire here in the U.S. that focuses on healthy food at scale. They are one of the biggest in this space, if not the biggest. And they are doing things right, including a recent announcement that they made that got all the press in the world, which is partly why we have Nicholas on the podcast today.

They announced that they are moving away from seed oils when it comes to cooking their vegetables and preparing their protein at their restaurants. That's a huge deal. It takes restaurants like Sweet Green who are willing to take this kind of risk and do things differently, even though the topic of seed oils is super controversial

and very nuanced. We get into some of those nuances there. So hats off to Sweet Green and hats off to Nicholas and his team a little bit more about Nicholas. Nicholas and his co-founders started Sweet Green in 2007, opening their first location in Georgetown, D.C., just three months out of college. Their vision is to be as ubiquitous as traditional fast food is, but far more transparent and honest. Nicholas has been recognized as a key innovator in food and in business, named

Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business, 30 under 30 for Forbes, and Food and Wine's 40 Big Food Thinkers Under 40. I'm excited to chat with Nicholas today. We're going to get into a bunch of stuff. if you're a budding entrepreneur, want to start a business, we talk about that a little bit. But first, we kick off the conversation by talking about one of the most controversial areas about health, which is the topic of seed oils. Stay tuned for a fantastic podcast with Nicholas Jamet, co-founder and chief concept officer of Sweet Queen. Nicholas, welcome to the podcast, brother. I'd love to start off with a topic that's pretty controversial in the health space, but I want to give a little bit of a background before we jump into it. So you're the co-founder of a billion-dollar restaurant empire.

And that restaurant empire is called Sweet Green. 200 plus locations all around the country. At scale, you guys are definitely the healthiest restaurant in America and hopefully soon in other parts of the world. And recently, you guys made a pretty mind-blowing and kind of shocking announcement. Can you tell us what that announcement was and why it was such a big deal? Sure. And thanks for having me today.

excited to talk about all things of food system and health, but we announced a few months ago a shift of all of our cooking oils towards extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil, so away from seed oils. And really, if you zoom out for us, you know, the whole purpose and intent of starting sweet green was to help kind of rethink the whole fast food model. And that really thinks, really thinks about the whole food journey from how we're thinking about our supply chain and how food is grown to the inputs, to, you know, how your food is prepared, to ultimately how you serve it, how you talk about it, the environment and the experience you create. But for us, the quality of the food and the inputs and then just being super transparent around

those has always been one of our biggest pillars. And the more and more we learned about different parts of the food system and how consumers are shifting, this conversation became bigger and bigger. And for us, it was really important to listen to our customers, but also just upgrade a part of one of our ingredients that we're really passionate about. I think the benefits of extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil are so dominant and exciting. And so for us, it really was just as much about shifting away from seed oils for cooking, but also shifting towards these fats that we're really excited about.

You know, you have your pulse on the hell scene, and you guys have had it since the beginning when you originally started in D.C. You know, a question that so many in our audience have, because they feel like they hear it from all different sides and different people arguing different things, which is, our seed oils, the devil. Well, you know, I think like any big question or big, you know, big decision like that, it's nuanced. It's not so black and white because it depends on so many different factors of what oil you're talking about, how you're using it, at what temperatures, what you're cooking in it and how you're serving and how you're holding. You know, there's all these different

factors. And for us, we spent a lot of time trying to just understand that question and do our own research. And just to ground you in what we were using before and still used in some parts of our restaurant was only high oleic sunflower oil. So again, when I say it's nuanced, that is technically a seed oil. But if you look at the fatty acid profile of that versus how we're using, you know, no frying, you know, versus some of the other seed oils we might talk about. It is very different. The impacts on your health are very different. Yeah, it's completely different than like an extreme like soybean oil, which isn't a lot of foods that are out there. It's a tough thing to communicate, though, to people because we live in this world where people want everything to be

black and white. Is this thing good for you? Is this thing bad for you? So you guys were using hyiolaic sunflower oil. Yeah. I mean, at Sweet Greenie, we were using only high olayx sunflower oil and extra virgin olive oil. So it really excited to make that shift and upgrade to extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil for all of our cooking. So all of our proteins, and veg and grains, which really opens up a whole different type of customer that maybe wanted to avoid seed oils. So for us, the premise of our food ethos was always around whole nutrient-dense food that is unprocessed and transparent.

So having optionality for any type of consumer, for whatever their diet choices might be. So making sure that we're just transparent about where the food comes from, how we're preparing it. I mean, I remember when we opened restaurant number three at Sweet Green in 2009, we put a chalkboard on the wall that listed all of our ingredients and what farms they were coming from, which ones were organic, which ones weren't. We still had that today in every sweet grain on every wall, but back then people thought we were crazy. Like, people don't need to know that in fast food. That's not why they come. That's not part of the experience of the relationship people have with

fast food, but that is something we wanted to shift towards. And I think when you look at consumer demand for that kind of information today, people are asking way more questions today about their food than they were, you know, 10, 20 years ago, obviously. This episode is brought to by Buy Optimizers. Can you believe it's already the new year? One thing I know I'm dialing in after a busy holiday season is my sleep, because honestly, sleep is one of the most important pillars of better health. The first thing that I do when I want to have my sleep back on track is to take magnesium.

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That's CozyEarth.com slash D-H-R-U-P-P. for 40% off. The sweet green story is so much bigger than seed oil. Seed oils are a part of the conversation because you guys made this announcement. And we're going to get into everything else. But since we're on this topic, I'd love to dig in a little bit further because I think of you and me. We're not health experts, right?

You're a business expert. You've built a billion dollar business. You've built a restaurant chain at scale that makes healthy food delicious, cravable, all the things that are there. Easy to access, easy to get. But we're not health experts, but we are, is like a lot of our audience. We are what I would call professional amateurs. It's a big part of our identity to think about health and to regularly read.

And in our circles independently, we're often the people that people would ask health questions to. And we could say, hey, well, this person said this or this person said that. So just because we're on this topic of seed oils, right? You explained that you guys were using hyalic sunflower oil and how that's a little bit different because of the fatty acid profile. What else did you guys know over the years that shows you even from the beginning of starting sweet green that had you stay away from other oils that a lot of other restaurant change use? And what are some of those oils? Sure.

So we, I mean, we spent a lot of time looking at every ingredient, every category. So our food ethos kind of double clicks into everything from animal welfare to, things grown in soil to fats, to seafood, and really thinking about the decisions we want to make on how we source and how we prepare all those ingredients. And so, you know, oils have become a bigger conversation like I've been saying. And so early on, we were super proud, and we're so proud of the Ohio Lake Sunflower Oil. I think it's a great ingredient for many examples. And part of what people don't think about also is, again, the how you're using the oil is really important. The freezing temperature and the heat temperature really affect how you use it and ultimately

the effect that has in your body. So certain oils that are not necessarily going to be used in, you know, cooking, right? It's not going to be as damaging to the body. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, there's a smoke point and a freezing point on oils. And so it dictates how you use them and ultimately how they either oxidize or ultimately how they affect your health and how your body ingest them. But for us, for example, when we think about, you know, running a restaurant that has certain operational requirements around holding food at certain temperatures, certain oils freeze and congeal at certain temperatures. And so for, you know, health department regulation, we hold all of our food at a certain temperature. So, for example, using only extra virgin olive oil and dressings is actually not possible in our restaurants because the dressings would just congeal on the line and harden. So there's things that, you know, there's all these other inputs that go into it.

But when you look at like the prevalence of seed oils over the last 100 years, I think the stat we read is that the average consumer is eating 20x more, consuming 20x more seed oils in their diet than they were 100 years ago. And that's just the prevalence of it is really around friability, cost, and shelf life and all those things that just make it easier and cheaper to use. And it's really the majority of those calories are coming in processed food, snacks, and fast food. And so for us, and we were deciding what to use at sweet green, just like we do with any ingredient, we wanted to look at all the research and all the science

and understanding how it works operationally, but also the effects on health and nutrition. So for us, sunflower, hyalakes, and flour and extravision olive oil, there were all these benefits we're super proud of. And then when you get into the flavor and the impact on how it makes the food taste, that's also a really important factor. In your own personal life, would you avoid some of the other oils that are very common? Like I'm talking about home cooking. You know, we all eat out at restaurants.

And it's crazy, you know, most of the restaurants, we actually don't even know what they're using necessarily. Big fast food places, obviously it's all standardized. You can get a sense of it. In fact, my assistant Testa brought, you know, a little prop over here, not trying to, like, call any name brands out. So maybe I'll just cover it. This is soybean oil. Is it fair to say that, like, the vast majority of cooking in America, like a high percentage of restaurants would use something like a soybean oil? Yeah, I think there's a...

Or a canola oil. I think there's a number of oils like that that most restaurants use. And to your point, as a consumer, when you go into these restaurants, you really have no idea. And even if you do care that much about it and you ask the server or the chef or the cook and you might get an answer, the other part of this is that a lot of those oils in their supply chains are also pretty murky and sometimes, you know, not super transparent and mislabeled or rancid. So I think that even folks in restaurants that maybe are trying to use a high quality oil, there's also complexity. in nuance all the way up the supply chain of what you actually are buying. And so for us, you know, being a restaurant at scale 220 restaurants is important for us to talk about this, but also just be transparent about what we're using, why we're using it. And to your point,

going into any restaurant today for a consumer that does care about an input like their oils, it's really hard to make decisions around, you know, and adhere to that. Me personally, I try to avoid them, but I'm not, you know, so dogmatic. You're not dogmatic. And I want to enjoy life and eat at places. But, you know, the less of them I eat, the more I do feel the effect when I do eat them. That's important. I saw this story recently. We'll put the link in the show notes. I can't remember if it was the Wall Street Journal or somewhere else. But it was talking about this big international, well, actually, national scam where you have a lot of restaurants chains. They reuse a lot of their oil. And then what they do is they have a dumpster in the back.

where they go and they dump this oil because food companies that are these big processors, they take this fried cooking oil, they take this soybean oil, this canola oil, things that generally we don't want a lot of in our diet, and they go and sell it to a refinery. A refinery will clean it, deodorize it, whatever, and then sell it right back to these restaurants. So what was happening and why it was news is that you had these sort of crime rings that found out that the restaurants were dumping it there and they would go with their own trucks, put in a hose, take the oil out. They would do the most minimal amount of processing, sometimes selling it to these refineries

directly. And then that oil would get back into the restaurant system, right? Not even fully cleaned, even if it was cleaned, you know, that's not the type of oil that I want to be eating regularly. All this to say is that where our market is moving. And I think you generally feel the same about this is that I actually want people. people to eat whatever they want to eat. I just want everybody to know what they're eating. The same way that we talk about the pros and cons of any sort of medical intervention,

risk, reward, informed consent, it feels like you guys have been major pioneers in the restaurant industry for saying, look, we stand for something. We believe in these things. And we're going to tell you. And then you get to decide, do you want to be a part of that story? Do you want to be part of that brand, do you want to be part of that community in that conversation? And I think that that's where health is heading. There's plenty of reasons why somebody might want to eat one thing or eat another, but nonetheless, I think we all agree that people should know where their food comes from. Couldn't agree more. And ultimately for me, my food ethos is just I eat food that makes me feel physically good. And that will mean different things for different people. So I think this idea of

personal definition of health is very personal, right? Like what is healthy and makes you feel good might be different than what makes me feel good. Our bodies are very different. There are are some like whole truths that I believe go across, you know, every type of body. And we believe in those at sweet green. But ultimately, to your point, it's around transparency. And so for us, it's just been about, you know, we don't have the highest quality food in every sense across every ingredient, but we're super transparent about the decisions we're making where things are sourced, how we're preparing them and just offering that to customers. And part of, you know, even sweet greens were not for 16 years. And in the early days, part of what was, you know, more

innovative about sweet green was really just lifting this curtain between customers and their food. Whether it was building more open kitchens or just sharing the information about the supply chain, customers were just disconnected from their food and what was going into it, everything from the oils to how things were sourced to, you know, all the process and refined sugars and, you know, all the different ingredients that go into your food that in many cases you may be thinking you're eating healthy, but you don't actually understand all the inputs. And so for us, it was just about, you know, making the decisions that we felt were best for, according our ethos and then just sharing those. So customers can make that decision of, I want to eat

100% organic or I want to eat no seed oils or I want to eat, you know, I want to be vegetarian for the month of January. And so I think it's customers will self-select into different health and food journeys. And we just want to make sure we arm them with the information around their food. I can't remember what exact year it was, but it was either like somewhere around like 2008, nine, somewhere around there was the first year that in America and obviously these trends are now being exported all around the world was the first year that as a nation, we spent more money on eating out than we did on grocery shopping, right? That was like around that time. Somebody can fact check me or we can link to it. And I think that why that's an important thing to know is

that we all have busy lives. We want convenience. And typically as society gets more educated, it has more opportunities, we want to live a big life. And a big life means typically a lot of activities, things. We all want to work out. We all want to do stuff. And, you know, and And just to put a button on the seed oil conversation is that most people are not waking up and choosing to cook in their home with certain seed oils. Even if it's nuanced, right? They're not choosing. They're typically getting most of their exposure from ultra-process foods and if they're ordering from not high-quality restaurants that they're. So it's a byproduct of us living a life where we need convenience that we end up with the sort of

not best options that are there. And as there's been more education in this space and people realize like, hey, actually our food matters and I actually do feel different when I eat a particular way and I stay away from ultra-process foods, that awareness has grown and the demand has been there. but why is it that, you know, a company like Sweet Green has kind of gotten their pulse and decided to make this available? And then other companies, industries may have not picked up on that. What do you see as like why you guys have been innovators in this space? Well, I think it goes back to the birth and premise of why we started Sweet Green.

You know, we were myself, Jonathan and Nathaniel were students at Georgetown in our senior year. And we were just sick of the diet food options we had for ourselves. The cafeteria was pretty gross. There were all these fast food options that just didn't make you feel very good. So we built the business plan, and the idea was, you know, when you looked around, the food that everyone craved the most, that was the most accessible, convenient, the coolest brands, was all the least healthy. And so the premise was simple and silly at the time was how do we do all those things for food that is actually good for you and makes you feel good and source the right way? And then how do we just tell that story and create a brand around it? And so over the years, I think it's starting this in 2007.

it's been exciting to see just the consumer relationship with food completely shift. I think you go back to that time and it was right around the time of, you know, so much more information around food and that relationship coming out, whether it was like fast food nation or supersized. There's all this information, I guess, finally being shared with a consumer, that they were starting to question their food decisions. And so for us, you know, it's this idea that convenience of fast food is wonderful. You know, I think if you look at even the history of fast food that really grew

and was built around like vehicular culture and just changing family patterns, and just convenience. And then to your point, in the last 10, 15 years, it's, you know, I think we saw a stat last year that the average consumer is eating fast food two or three times a week. And so that is pretty incredible in terms of convenience and access and what it does,

but to your point, in that same period of time, you know, portions have gotten bigger, inputs have gotten, you know, that have become lower quality, whether it's oils or everything that goes into your food. So we're eating more of this kind of food that is kind of making us sicker. And ultimately, it's very convenient.

So for us, The premise was how do you maintain that convenience, if anything, enhance it? We were one of the first restaurant companies to invest in tech in terms of digital ordering and ordering ahead that completely shifted our relationship with our customer because we made it so easy to get this kind of food. And then the focus was more on cravability and brand storytelling. How do we tell stories around these ingredients and this food and just make it taste really good?

So customers want to eat it. You have to create the desire for this kind of food. So convenience and desire create a pretty sticky customer. And so, you know, for us, it's just that was the original premise of street cream, was really redefined fast food and make it something that where the healthy choice was the one that you craved the most, was the brand that you wanted to interact with and be seen holding that bag and was just as convenient as any other type of fast food. You have a whole team that, you know, works on these recipes and everything like that,

but usually a lot of it, you know, in terms of like the innovation and seeing what's out there having your pulse, how did you ultimately end up feeling excited about extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil, right? You guys were already using some extra version olive oil, but then how did you make the decision? Like, we're only going to use these two oils and why these two oils when it comes to cooking our proteins and, you know, making the actual meals. First and foremost, so much of our, the work we do around that is around how it makes the food taste. And so for us, extra virgin olive oil for us is just a delicious flavor. Avocado oil is more. neutral. So having the balance of those two allows us some good versatility on what we're using

them and how we're using them. Avocata oil has a higher smoke point so we can roast more with it. And we don't need friars at Sweet Green. So those high high temps are not as, you know, we don't worry about those. But for us, it was just really understanding this growing conversation and the importance of the fats in your diet. And when you start to look at some of the just, again, the prevalence of how much consumers are eating of this, it's in every part of their diet. And then we looked at, you know, the role sweet green plays in this fast food landscape and that no one else that scale was really thinking about this or serving it. We thought it was a really exciting opportunity to just talk about this and share this with our customer and really proud of extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil for the fatty acid profile, the flavor for all the above and how we can use them in our restaurants. But it just felt like a really exciting, you know, nod to the quality of our inputs and be able to tell that story to our customers.

What was a response like when you guys made the announcement? I kind of saw it on a bunch of newspapers and other things. I thought, wow, this is getting a lot of traction. What has been the response from media, customers, health influencers who have all sorts of different ideas about seed oils and whether they're good for you or bad for you? What was it like? The response has been incredible. Honestly, a lot of folks are very excited about it. And what's really fascinating is there are a lot of customers that maybe weren't thinking about this or maybe didn't care.

but now learned about it. And they're like, oh, wow. I maybe wasn't thinking about that when I was making my food choices, but now I might. And so I think there was a, you know, people love learning about all the information and the decisions that go into our food and our menu. And so it's just really great for us to tell our food story. So the response has been incredible.

It's an investment we've made in our menu. And so for us, we want to continue to tell that story and just share that. But ultimately, it's not even about demonizing seed oils, right? Because I think, to your point, even when we spent a year plus really, researching and going deep on this, I got and read different research papers and talked to different experts that will tell you opposite opinions, fully opposite opinions about every oil. And they all seem super smart and they all seem very educated and you're just like, what the heck? And again, the nuance is there and how you're using it and how much. And so again, there's, and so we applied

that thinking to how we chose those oils and how we use them at sweet green. But ultimately, you know, there was really a lot of excitement and love for the two oils we're using. And we were really excited about the flavor they bring, but it all comes down to then transparency of just sharing what oil is and what and how we're using it. And so when a diner or customer really does care about that, they can come to sweet green and trust that, you know, they're getting exactly what they want in their meal. So there's another, not necessarily announcement, but campaign, menu shift, other stuff that I honestly, I was excited about the seed oil announcement. And personally, I'll just tell you, even here in L.A., where we have a lot of healthy options and different things

it was there. It was so amazing to see multiple friends of mine who felt like even more brand allegiance to Sweet Green for being a mover and shaker in the space. And we're like, oh, I'm going to go order from there more regularly. And through that process, they thought they're getting the same menu that they knew a couple years ago. And the big shocker and the excitement and the part that I felt even more excited about than the seed oils, even though I was very excited about that, was you guys have this whole new, you're on the protein train. And me, friends of mine, contemporaries of mine in this podcast, and I've shared with my audience, you know, probably about like two, two and a half years ago, I really started to understand

and prioritize protein in my diet. And a big part of it was Dr. Gabriel Lyon, who's been a guest on this episode multiple times. and some of those clips that we originally did with her on there have like 20 million views on Instagram. Like they went pretty viral. And I think it came out of the time. She wasn't the only one. There's plenty of people.

And there's been people that have been talking about the importance of protein for such a long time. But it hit at the zeitgeist in a way that a bunch of people, even my own family members, were like, oh, wow, we are not prioritizing protein or my friends who want to prioritize protein. but like it's not as easy to get when you go out in the marketplace. So tell us what you guys did with the protein conversation. Yeah, well, I'm glad you're very excited about it. I've been very excited about it too. And for someone that's been eating sweet green every day for 16 years,

I'm shocked at how it's changed my own consumption of our own product, honestly. But we, you know, sweet green for the whole of the 16 years has evolved a ton. Our menu are offering the experience, all the channels. And that's been pretty intentional. We're big believers and just understanding where the consumer. is, where they're going, you know, what they're telling us, but also where we think they're going. And just making sure we evolve the experience, the offering for where the world is going and where we think it should go. So again, whether that's investments in technology, our supply chain

oils or our menu, our menu has evolved a ton over the 16 years. I mean, our original offering was soft serve and salad. We've tried everything from, you know, we used to have wraps and juices. And so we've really experimented a lot being a young startup. And today, over the couple years as we really spend a lot of time listening to our customer and just, you know, the world and I guess dining trends is really interesting to hear how loud the conversation and demand was around protein. And really beyond the customer type that you would think, really just to the average, you know, sweet green customer and the average eater, just this conversation on the importance of protein to your point has really exploded. And, you know, it's something

we have been thinking about a lot the last few years. And so finally, last a few months ago, we launched a whole new part of our mini called protein plates. So not salad, no greens, and really just focus on grains, protein, and some veg. And ultimately, again, like anything on our menu, highly customizable. So the diner can come in and really think about what they want to build and what macros they want to hit. But we released two new center plate proteins, one being a larger herb-roasted chicken, and one being a misoglaced salmon, both larger portions. And so these plates that we launched have in here from 35 to 50 plus grams or protein in them.

And the response has been really exciting. And I think ultimately consumers are eating out more and the wider range of options they want from places they trust is definitely something we've heard. And to your point, it's been fascinating to see just the broader consumer and their focus on protein these days. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. You know, if you're a fan of this podcast, you've heard me talk about the importance of a diet rich and phytonutrients, fire, and plenty of protein. That's why I'm a huge fan of sweet green. I usually go to sweet green to grab a salad in between my podcast or for dinner, pick one up for my wife, but recently, I've been grabbing one of their new protein plates. That's right. They have a whole new line of

protein plates. Three new protein plates in particular that not only tastes fantastic, but have at least 33 grams, 33 grams of protein each and a ton of flavor. The hot honey chicken is my absolute favorite out of the three. You know, sometimes it's challenging to meet your protein needs, especially if you're doing it in a clean way, and especially when you're on the go. But Sweet Green makes it super easy. The hot honey chicken plate I get has 49. That's right, 49 grams of protein, which is perfect for me, especially after a tough workout. And by the way, I'm a huge fan of Sweet Green's mission. They're a big purchaser of local farmers and suppliers, which I think is incredible. And their food tastes great, which I mentioned. And by the way, big news, I love that they don't use vegetable oils anymore

when it comes to cooking their grains, their proteins, and their veggies. Now they use extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil in some instances. That's a huge win for anybody who's trying to minimize exposure to cooked vegetable oils in their diet. You know, I really look at Sweet Green as pioneers in the space of eating well in affordable way and making health accessible for everyone, especially those who are busy. Visit your nearest Sweet Green. There's a ton of them out there or find out more information about SweetGreen

by going to SweetGreen.com. And new users of the Sweet Green app, yes, they have their own app, by the way. You can order pickup or delivery through it. You can use the code Drew 5 for $5 off. That's D-H-R-U-5 for $5 off your next order through the Sweet Green app. Yeah, and again, however people eat,

whether you eat me, whether you don't, you guys have an option for all those. What I liked about is that my wife, Yasmin, she worked at a tech startup in Santa Monica, not too far away from that sweet green location that was there, I think, on Fifth Street, Fourth Street. Yeah, somewhere around Fourth Street. And every day she had trained herself, like lunch, great, sweet green, healthy option, everything like that.

And I would go, I would frequent Sweet Green as well too, different locations around. And I was primarily used to like, okay, sweet green in my head is a salad. And salad typically for me is lunch. For dinner, I don't always want to eat a salad. And then when I heard from you and then I saw that you guys launched these protein plates, I was like, wow. Like this is actually like now a dinner thing for me as well too. And that felt exciting because it felt like another option of not always do we want to cook.

I'm very lucky that I live not too far away from the location in Brentwood. And, you know, door to door, it's pretty easy to either walk. there or have it delivered. But it felt like it expanded the menu just beyond salad. And now we had a dinner option. And my favorite is the hot honey chicken. I make a couple modifications for me. But I think that protein plate has like 49 grams of protein. Yep. Is that actually? It does. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just amazed that it's like, wow, I can go out. I can eat at a place that's going to like tell me where they source things from. Be proud. of it, have different farmers that might even be practicing some regenerative or other aspects,

which we'll talk about in a second. And I can hit my protein goals after maybe a heavy workout that day or needing to top off. I feel like you guys really nailed it with that. And I've been definitely sharing with more people in my life that this is something. Even my parents who, you know, I've shown on this podcast before, I grew up being and eating primarily like an Indian vegetarian diet. And even though we ate very healthy, protein is typically not something that is very prioritized. And you know, you grow up and you hear like, yeah, just eat like lentils is your protein. Beans is your protein. And obviously you can get plenty of vegetarian proteins out of there.

But then when I, around 2008, decided to start consuming fish because I did a test, that was called an omega quant test. And it like completely showed me that my omega-369 ratios was off. Oh, wow. And it was part of the reason that I was feeling like my brain isn't working as much. I started eating fish and like my brain turned on, like within a matter of like weeks. And the, and right when I started to, I would share with my family. And you know, if you're vegetarian, especially like Indian, it's like baked into your, it's religion, right?

It's like a big part of religion. To my surprise. my parents who had been vegetarian in their entire life started being open to including some animal protein to hit their protein goals. And they live not too far away from a sweet green in San Diego in the Forest Ranch area. You guys have a new location. It just opened up recently. They're like right new time, not too far away from that. And I've found that the new protein plates is an easier thing for them to now help them hit their protein goals. So anyways, I could go on and on, but I'm just giving you a little background in my audience of background of how much I've been digging the plates.

I love that. I mean, the way you describe it was exactly the premise and the purpose and us understanding, you know, our consumer had a few ways of really interacting with sweethears. It's like that solid lunchtime place and especially in highly dense urban areas. It's like you're in an office, lunchtime, you want something that makes you feel good, we'll fill you up enough. And again, you can customize to hit whatever that may be for yourself. And in this world where people are how they work and where they work is a little different.

And we've also just now expanded into more suburban areas and where people not just work but live. We got really excited about broadening the menu to just give our customers more ways that they can, you know, interact with our food in a way that they trust, but also just invite new folks into sweet green that don't consider themselves salad eaters and really just continue to broaden the use case around this broader premise of sweet green, which is not salads, but healthy fast food. And that was really always the premise. And so for us, seeing these protein plates and just the reaction has been really exciting. And one of the things we really hear from our customers today is just the importance of a value, especially at dinner. And so, you know, where you're going with this is just the convenience, but also the price of value, if you do care about the inputs and the quality of the food and you want something that's craveable,

you know, getting a healthy, you know, filling protein center of plate dinner for 15 to 16 bucks is pretty, hard these days unless you cook for yourself. And so the idea for us is really to think about value in different forms and more price value. You know, for us, we talk a lot about price value. Is the thing you're buying worth it? Does it feel worth it? Not just is it cheap, but does it feel worth it? And so for us, that's why telling our story around all the incredible regenerative farmers we work with, all the, you know, the input on the emphasis on it, our inputs and oils, all that stuff really gives the consumer the information to decide, okay, is this worth it? But for us, you know, in the last couple years and, you know, the economy

that we're in, I think we're hearing from our consumers, that value is really top of mind. And so for us, whether it's our offering or our loyalty program, we wanted to really give consumers the chance to have that product that makes them feel good that they want, but make sure they feel like it's worth it. So I was chatting about the awareness around protein, and there's a few people that have been a huge part of that. You know, people like Dr. Donald Lehman, who's a mentor of Dr. Gabriel Lyon. I think definitely Peter Attia and how much he's been sounding, especially in his book and

everything that's there and a multitude of other individuals talking about the importance of prioritizing protein, especially as we age. I think the stat that was shared by multitude of those individuals is that after the age of 40, and I turned 40 a year ago, year and a half ago, you live. the average person is losing 10% of their muscle mass every decade. And that's how we live in a society where the vast majority of people above a certain age, and you just can visit any nursing home to see, have sarcopenia, you know, osteoporosis. They have, they fall, they break their hip because they don't have enough muscle to sort of protect the

bones, their metabolic health decreases over that time. And we know that muscle mass, which requires, of course, protein and working out resistance training, muscle mass is a big part of metabolic health and soaking up that glucose that are there. So there's been more and more sort of awareness and people talking about it. And it's been also exciting to see even people that are, you know, vegetarian or vegan, that are younger that are on the up and up of a lot of the science, starting to say that, hey, yes, even if you choose to eat a vegetarian and vegan diet, you need to prioritize protein. And here's the data.

Somebody like a Simon Hill, you know, who's been on this podcast before. And I want to ask you because, like, you don't just sell this stuff. You, like, live this lifestyle. Where are you with your protein? And do you track it? And do you shoot for some of those recommendations, especially because I know you're into strain training, do you shoot for that target sort of 1.2 grams per, you know, what your ideal lean body mass is? What are your thoughts on that for you personally? Yeah, you know, for me,

I think the, what you're describing is this broader conversation that's been really exciting for me personally, but also at Sweet Green is this kind of conversation around broader, just longevity and health span and just consumers understanding, you know, the food they eat today, what effect it has on you 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And ultimately, those inputs, you know, do affect you, not just how you feel after eating something, you know, an hour later, but how it affects you and how you age from it. And so it's been really exciting to see that because ultimately when you look at the data of how much money we spend on food versus health care, the average consumer, and like that relationship, it's so correlated. And so for us, when we talk about price value

and, you know, prioritizing the right parts of your diet like protein, I think it's really exciting to see this conversation become so surface level. And so top of mind for consumers. myself personally I have definitely started eating more protein in the last few years and and I do it simply not because you know I read you got to get a certain number of you know hit your macros but it just makes me feel better for my lifestyle the way I train the way I you know work out my just busy lifestyle it just makes me feel physically better and what do you mean by feel like what do you actually feel you know I sleep better I feel less foggy I feel stronger when I'm working out and I just feel as I age I feel stronger and more clear

headed. And so for me, I do generally try to hit the recommended macros of one gram per pound of weight is generally what I'm trying to hit. It depends how heavy I'm working out or training. But I also just feel like it fills me up more. So I end up snacking less, the more protein they eat. Yeah. We've had a few people on the podcast, Dr. E on Twitter, who does a lot of really great content. And he's like, you know, big on satiety and sharing about all the studies around satiety and how protein and fiber, right, are some of the most satiating things and especially getting protein early in the morning, which has been the biggest hack for my wife to get her on that train. She kind of would either skip breakfast and, you know, type A personality,

doing everything for everybody else, you know, kind of forgetting about herself sometimes and just powering through. She'd skip breakfast and off and around like that mid-afternoon hit this like crash. I've been there before. I'm not just picking on her. her. I used to do a lot of that back in the day. And now getting her to prioritize protein in the morning. We were just chit-chatting a little bit before we hit record. You said, our friend Chase over here, whose studio we're recording in, shout out to Operation Podcast. If you ever want to record, you know, look for them in Los Angeles. They have a bunch of studios. But he was saying, okay, let's check your microphone. What did you eat for breakfast this morning? You're like,

oh, yeah, well, I had a little bit of sweet green. And he said, don't say sweet green. And I was like, how do you eat sweet green? Do you have this code where you can get into the restaurant early? He's like, no, you said, I eat the leftover in the morning sometimes. I'll throw it with a little bit of an egg and kind of stir fry it. And I was like, that's crazy because that's the same thing that we'll often do. And getting my wife to eat protein and some fiber and healthy fat in the morning, she is now the biggest proponent of this because she feels like, oh my gosh, my brain works. I crave the crappy food less. And I have this sustained energy. And that. is actually a lot of people around the world, they don't skip breakfast. They actually, in most

societies that even practice fasting, they'll typically fast in the evening. They're going to eat breakfast. They're going to prioritize protein, fat, fiber, because those things are going to give you the fuel and the brain energy to go accomplish everything that you want to do in that day. Yeah, you know, it's really fascinating for me actually personally in my life. The last three months, I just had a second baby. And, you know, this relationship. around food and the inputs and the oils and just like the nutrient density became even more clear to me in a weird way when I see what my wife is eating obviously to then, you know, breastfeed our son. And you see just the inputs there. So I'm even more mindful now being like, okay, everything she eats,

we want to be super cautious just to make sure that milk production and, and like, you know, we're growing a human, but this one nutrient source. And so it's been really interesting to even for myself to go deeper and understanding as I'm, you know, I spent a lot of time cooking for her as she was at home recovering and nursing our new son. But it's just really fascinating to see just the difference even in what you eat and how it affects breast milk production and how you're actually then, you know, feeding you're a newborn. Well, I mean, we just did a podcast earlier this week and we were sharing with one of the world's top experts.

We were talking about the space of autism. Her name is Dr. Suzanne Goh. She has a bunch of clinics that are out there. She's Harvard-trained doctor who created this whole year. unique personalized approach to autism. And one of the things that she was sharing to individuals is that in 20, in the early 2000, it was one in every 110 kids were diagnosed with autism. Then it went to in 2012, I think, was like one in 77.

Today, and this is why she wrote her book and a sounding alarm, it's one in 33, right? I knew the stats, but I didn't know it had changed that much so quickly. Now, I asked her how much of this is environment, which includes food, chemical exposure, not getting access to healthy fats, in utero, other stuff, whatever it might be, and other stressors on the mitochondria. She wrote this pivotal paper on, you know, a developing brain is, the mitochondria is so sensitive that our modern industrialized world is taxing that mitochondria. and she showed that 80% of kids on the autism spectrum with a diagnosis, they have mitochondrial

dysfunction. And that was previously not understood. It was a groundbreaking paper. I asked her how much of it is environment and how much of it is just increased diagnosis, which is what we hear, right? And she said, even in the most conservative estimates, we know that it's 50-50. And that's the conservative of estimates. Okay, so fine, 50% is increased awareness, books, other stuff, more physicians, more screening. But that means 50% is our environment. Food is a part of that, healthy fats, especially getting access to that for the baby's brain. Toxins, pesticides is a big thing she's concerned about. But just when you were talking about, you know, the idea that what you eat and you guys having a baby.

You know, my wife and I, you know, we want to start a family soon too. And we're thinking about these same things that these decisions we make are literally impacting our future generations, right? And as selfish as it might seem some time to have a health podcast talking about all the nuances and the other things about health and is this organic or is this, this, this, is that. The healthier we all are, the healthier we make everybody. around this. And I even tell my parents who are now in their 70s, it's so important to prioritize

your health because at the end of the day, you know, the healthier you are, the less that, and I will always take care of my parents, but the less that anybody has to, you know, not, I don't want to say like not take care of you because we always want to take care of each other, but the less that you're going to be taxing and stressing the family around you. So there's all to say that just prioritizing our health is literally central to the the development of our species. And that's why it should be a national conversation. Yeah. And I mean, I couldn't agree more. I think when you look at just the broader like metabolic disease and just like chronic illness and how much that is preventative and diet related,

that's what gets me excited and like gets me out of bed every day to be building sweet cream because ultimately your relationship with your food is your relationship with your health. And there's nothing more exciting. Even, you know, we joke with my wife back to like her diet when she's breastfeeding is I've never purchased more ghee in my life. Like, you know, we were just like gousing everything in ghee. And we loved it before and we were never afraid of, you know, healthy fats. But when you, when my, the way it made her feel and even the effect on her production, breast milk production, it was just wild to see our relationship with food even shift when you have this newborn in the equation and just see what your body is capable of. It's been just completely wild.

Let's come back to your menu. We talked about moving away from seed oils, moving to these healthier oils. extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil. We talked about protein and how you guys have been innovators in that space, why you're prioritizing it both in your individual life, how the market is asking for it, how people are excited about it, I'm excited about it. What are the other categories of innovation where you guys are paying attention

to the best ingredients, the best tasting ingredients, and trying to make this accessible at scale, right? Give us a couple more that we want to dive into. Yeah, you know, I would say one of the parts of our supply chain that we're super proud of is just the focus on some of these incredible organic regenerative growers we work with and thinking about ultimately effects on soil health. And I think, you know, we could spend hours talking about soil health. And for us, it really is about not just the broader system and climate, but also just nutrient density and then effects on actually the quality of the product and the flavor. So there's a lot of studies done on just obviously organic regenerative farming and how you want to define that of all the different. you know, tilling and crop rotating and there's all these different parts of it that go into

like a proper regenerative system. And some farmers are doing more or less of those. But ultimately, I think the effect of that on nutrient density of the actual ingredient is pretty incredible. So for us, and then that correlates to just the flavor of it. And so for us, we've really excited to build this incredible network of farmers and growers and food partners that are thinking about regenerative practices in a really exciting way. And for us, as we grow and as we scale, we get excited about shifting more and more land and supply to that. And that's really been one of the goals as we think about growing sweet green is working with farmers that are treating soil the right way. And ultimately, it's good for the broader ag system, but it also creates the best tasting,

the most nutrient-dense food. Can you give the top line? I think a lot of our audience has heard about regenerative. They know that it's something that's growing. They know it's better. But if you would give the elevator pitch on why you guys are excited about it, right? What are the key thing? that lead sweet green to say that, hey, this is an area that we want to invest in. You know, it might be an area that doesn't have, you know, scale right now. So even the cost are higher for you, right? If you're going to go and pursue a regenerative tomato versus like a standard commercial tomato that's going to cost you guys a little bit right now.

So what makes you so excited that you want to actually pursue this area? Yeah. And for us, I think to your point, it's an interesting balance. because for us, our goal is to really create this type of healthy fast food at scale. So we can't go, you know, buying a 10 out of 10 on every ingredient, spending all of our money. So it is a balance of building a profitable business that can do good for the world and also create this value for the consumer. And for us, you know, my co-founders and I talk a lot about the city of conscious capitalism.

How do we really think about making investments that, you know, have that triple bottom line and create value for the world, the customer, our business, our shareholders. And those balances are hard to strike at times. And sometimes the value is created in short-term, medium-term, long-term, but that equation is always there as we make investments. And so for us, really thinking about supporting regenerative agriculture and a food system that we think needs to, where the food system needs to evolve to is really just important. If we want to continue growing and buying food that is grown in healthy soil, we need to be partners with those farmers and growers are doing things the right way. And building a restaurant business, the restaurant business is a very hard business. What's way harder than the restaurant business is being a farmer, growing the food for restaurants.

And so for us, we've always had a focus on being a great partner to farmers and growers and being a partner that can support the right practices in regenerative farming and organic farming. Does that mean we're 100% organic and can be? No. I think there's like different nuances to certifications and cost. And so for us, it's again, comes back to transparency. We do share what is organic, what is not, what farmers we're buying from.

and we get really excited to tell stories about the practices they're using in their farms. A crazy thing that I just learned from hearing you're on a friend's podcast is that not only do you guys buy from these farmers, but you actually kind of dipped your toe in the sort of farming process. And together with a chef, I'll let you tell the story, you guys came up a few years ago with a squash that then, you know, you supported a bunch of farmers to grow. and then you ultimately ended up using this in your meal. So what caused you to go through that process and what did you guys do? You know, it's one of my favorite things we've done at Sweet Green

and it was, you know, about five years ago, we worked with this, you know, renowned chef and writer, Dan Barber from Blue Hill, Stone Barnes in New York. And, you know, he wrote, you know, one of the Bibles of Food and Ag, this book that's really incredible called The Third Plate and it talks a lot about soil health and flavor and amongst a few other things.

But really the idea was around really, rethinking how ingredients are grown, not just in terms of soil health, but also down to seed breeding and how seeds are bred ultimately for what purpose. And, you know, modern day seed breeding is really focused on yield and price and durability and how things travel. So, you know, a lot of times the tomato seed has been bred over the years, you know, just optimized for all those things. But last on that list often is flavor. And so he built this company called row seven that really was trying to go back to understand and prioritize seed breeding around flavor.

And so he was launching that company that year. We partnered with him. We've partnered with him a few times in the past. He's an incredible thought leader and has really helped us think about different parts of our food system very differently. And so he had this one squash. He was one squash see called a Kogi Nut Squash.

That was this incredible squash that was bred for flavor and it cures in the field. and we said, okay, we'll take 100,000 seeds. We will grow with a bunch of our incredible farmers across the country, six different farmers, 20-something acres. And we planted them. And at the time, no one had ever planted that seed at scale. So it was a bit of a risk.

But tasting this product and understanding the impact it has, not just on the soil health, but also on just the flavor and how good it tasted. We were really committed to making it work. And it worked, came out of the ground. You know, we had this incredible, Kogi Nut squash bowl on our menu and got to tell this story of breeding for flavor, of seed breeding around just creating the most delicious squash, the most delicious vegetable

that sat at the center of the plate. And it really was exciting to see customers, you know, just love the product, but understand a bit more about what goes into their food. And so being able to tell that story, you know, we even, one of my favorite moments, we had Dan Barber holding up a squash on a billboard in Times Square. And again, treating this squash like such an, you know, incredible product. Like it was this new product that we dropped, like the new sneaker of the year, you know, the new vegetable of the year, and really celebrating it because it just tasted so damn good and it was good for the soil. It was really an exciting story to tell. One of the ways that, you know, I don't want to say competitors, but just let's say,

in the fast food, fast casual space, one of the ways that people and companies make things cheap and hyper palatable is sugar. What's your guys been approached when it comes to traditional areas like dressings or other stuff where people might use a lot of refined sugar and feel like, oh my gosh, like I'm addicted to the salad, but they have no idea how much sugar. If they were making that at home, they would never put that much sugar in, right? Also with salt sometimes too. But let's talk about sugar.

How have you guys navigated that space for things like dressings that might require or sauces that might require sugar? It's a great question. I think it goes back to even the conversation on oils of just being really thoughtful about every input that goes into our recipes. So whether it's the oils or the sweeteners or we don't use any highly processed, any preservatives or any crazy. Our food is very simple and pure. And so when it comes to the sweeteners, we avoid all refined sugars. We don't even buy refined sugar in our restaurant in any of our recipes. We use honey, maple syrup. In one of our desserts, there's a coconut sugar, organic coconut sugar.

And so for us, it's, we really believe in avoiding refined sugars. And that doesn't mean it can't be in things and enjoyed in treats. But for us, it was about making sure all of our recipes and all of our food was really clean and that would ultimately make you feel really good. And so to your point, when you go out to restaurants, so very often there are all these inputs that make the food very delicious, but then kind of don't make you feel that good at the end. And so for us, it was really important to have, even in our beverages, to have this really incredible sweetener ethos that really prioritizes just cleaner sweeteners.

Any other ingredient stories that would be interesting to our audience here about just the thoughtfulness or the level of attention that you guys put into it? I know in my hot honey chicken plate, you know, I get the option of white rice, which I'm a fan of white rice. And I typically, I've always had issues with grains. But then I thought, you know, the other day, this was like two months ago, let me try this wild rice. And I actually, it digested well. Like, I probably have a history of like leaky gut, other stuff.

There's just certain things like quinoa I don't do well with, right? White rice, great. On the days that I want to have a little bit of white rice, fantastic. And I had the wild rice and I thought, this digested well, I feel great with it. And it tasted good, you know? Tell us a story about that. Yeah, very proud of the grains and some of the partners we've used there for years. I mean, on the wild rice, we work with.

Lundberg Farms, which is a brand that people know you see it in grocery stores. It's an incredible, incredible company that has an amazing domestic supply chain around all different types of prices and grains. And so our wild rice, a lot of it comes from Lundberg Farms. Our quinoa, actually, we have an incredible partnership with a company called Simply, and that focuses highly on regenerative farming practices. And so for us, it was just important to have this range of grains that either were more neutral like the white rice or had more protein or had like a nuttier flavor like the wild

rice. And the white rice is actually an addition that just was added with the prudging plates. So it's been exciting to see customers really change their behavior with that addition. You know, we are still in this sort of early phase of the year. We're recording like late January. Some people are still holding on to their New Year's resolutions, right? I'm a big fan of habits. I don't really make New Year's resolutions. But for a lot of people, because of this world that we live in, and I generally feel that access to more information is a good thing because then people can decide what they want to do. But I think for that person who's not the health professional, I call them the pro-am, right? People like me and you who are not experts, but like

it's a big part of our identity, they can sometimes feel whiplash on, should I be doing this, should I be doing that? Should I be doing this? Should I be doing that? What have you felt, and you and your co-founders, like, baked in as the core, when it comes to eating, what are the core principles that you'd want to share with this person that regardless of how they choose to eat, if they can stick to these core principles, they're going to be doing better than like 99% of the population, right? So what are some of those principles that you want to share with that person who's listening? Yeah, it's a great question. Ultimately, for me, again, I go back to the answer of everyone's, what everyone should be doing is personal to their own body and how it makes

them feel. So ultimately, just being very mindful of what you eat and how it makes you feel. But generally for me, I mean, the principles are, even before we talk about what you eat, it's like sleep and water, like sleep and hydration from your huge parts of how I just feel good, which is easier said than done, obviously. But when it comes to food, it's just really like, and this aligns with our foodie dose of sweet green. It's a really simple focus on whole nutrient dense on processed food. Just eating real food. Yeah. Just if you just move to a more whole food diet, you're going to be better. Even just the 80, 20. It's like, it doesn't mean you can't go out and eat or, you know, even all the, some of the foods that everyone loves to demonize.

It's like those things are fine as treats or every once in a while. It's like you can enjoy and go out and eat. It just becomes a problem. Our food system is built around creating that as the only kind of option from an access or affordability. And that ends up being 80% of someone's diet. And that's a much larger socioeconomic conversation. But for me, it's not about demonizing or villainizing any food. It's just understanding what you're eating, how it makes you feel and just making sure that you are choosing to eat that.

But for me, the 80-20 is just eating super, whole food, real food, unprocessed, clean food. 80 plus percent of the time. I mean, the nutrient density and the macro, so protein, very big focus on protein. And again, staying really hydrated, trying to drink a lot of water. And obviously, I know with electrolytes and sodium, that's also something I've been testing out recently. But it's really, honestly, that's simple. And I think ultimately when it comes to activity, just not sitting at a desk all day, right?

So just walking around, getting steps in, being active. You know, I personally enjoy strength training quite a bit. but also just getting in, getting your steps in. So prioritizing whole foods as the base of your diet, fine, you want to have some fun every so often and there's plenty of places to do that. Or you can take the Michael Pollan approach, which is, you know, if you have fast food in the home, make it yourself. You want fries, you know, make it in the air fryer, right?

There's a lot of different, you know, rules and principles that people have. But generally speaking, if you're focused on 80% of your diet or around there as whole foods. You're already doing better than most people. Prioritizing, you know, protein, right? It's one of the things that you and I both share. Do you in your own life think about, and, you know, one of the things I like about Street Green is sometimes I'm ordering there and I'm like, oh, you know what? I haven't had many olives this week. Let me add up the diversity a little bit of my diet. Let me get some olives and cilantro because I haven't had them in a little while. Is diversity something that you think about? I kind of think about diversity and fiber hand in hand. Right.

right to make sure to get my adequate amount of fiber because when my protein is really high and my fiber is really low yeah i don't feel great basically i feel like a little bit more constipated yeah and nobody wants that right so keeping my fiber up and maintaining diversity is that something that's important to you yeah i mean i think it depends on what kind of eater you are i enjoy moving around our menu and just trying different things and i do get bored when i eat the same thing too often so that's the top of eater i am some people and we see this at sweet cream with our consumers are just regulars have the same order they come in every time for. And so I think, I think it depends on what kind of eat you are. I think most of the times those eaters, when they do order something

different or end up trying something different, they're surprised and it kind of like shocks their behavior to try something new. But generally, we have a lot of customers at Sweet Green that kind of eat the same thing every time. Myself, I love to, you know, try different things and whether it's that sweetgreen outside of Sweet Green. I want to pivot to the business side of things. You know, before I got into the world of health, I was first always thought of myself as an entrepreneur, started a bunch of different companies inside of the tech space and then ultimately the health space. And the podcast has always just been something that I've been doing for fun on the side. When you guys started, and I remember some of those early days, we talked a little bit about this. I didn't live in D.C., but I was part of a few different communities where there was a lot of overlap.

and I saw the buzz that was there. Part of the early press that I saw was like, wow, these like, it was four of you together, three of you. It was three of you, you know, these college buddies who have no restaurant experience, right? They're now trying to bring this like deep optimism and a sense of sort of change to this industry. And it was kind of like a big deal of like. like, whoa, there's this like startup that's approaching this space and they're trying to like redefine what fast casual looks like. What was it like in the early days of even deciding

that you wanted to do this business, right? Take us through a little bit of that from like the business side of the conversation and the founding of the company. I mean, early on, the premise, again, was just the three of us wanted this product in our lives. And we knew that our friends, everyone around us in that community of Georgetown wanted this product. So just, you know, being business undergraduate majors, we were like, this is a product that's needed. It was like a market, you know, product market fit. Then as we did our research, you know, we realized this was a broader opportunity in, you know, not just Georgetown, but D.C. and then probably even beyond that, domestically and globally, just fast food needed to evolve to meet how consumers changes,

how consumers or behavior was changing and their needs around food were changing. And so for us, it was just, we built it for ourselves and we realized it was a bigger opportunity here. And, you know, I think businesses are always really great when you know, you understand the consumer. And so from day one, we were the consumer. We were building this for ourselves. Where people were telling you like, hey, this is a crazy idea. Sure, you might have one location, but are you really going to go against the juggernaut, which is fast food?

I mean, we got told no a bunch of times. You know, we got told this is silly. This is not a real business, you know. And then when people would give us advice, it'd say, oh, you're not going to serve soda. You're not going to have a fountain. You're not going to, you know, your menu's not going to look like this. you're not going to buy, you know, there were, and definitely there's parts of a restaurant that are just, you know, you need to adhere to. But for us, because it was our first restaurant, we had never built

one, you know, even from the way we built the physical restaurant to the menu, to the supply chain, you know, there was a lot of idealism in naivete that drove certain, you know, parts of our business that became a premise that I think we're doing it differently, not just doing it the way that everyone else did it. And so for us, you know, early on having that intention to shift fast food and shift the experience, and not even from the way we founded it. I mean, ultimately, even around the technology investments, how we built our supply chain, how we built our brand. I mean, at a point in D.C., we had a lot of success building our brand by just creating

these cultural, experiential moments with our customers and engaging them with a food brand in a different way, whether it was these large events, we would throw these big food and music festivals called Sweet Life Festival, they just created a different conversation around food, a different connection to the brand. And so for us, it was always about understanding how we can create that sense of community, how we can connect folks to food in a different way, and then just ultimately build a different experience. What was something almost overlooked or simple or like, you know,

somebody might hear today and think, oh, was that really, you know, a big deal? What was something simple that you guys decided on early or implemented? That it was so simple, it was so straightforward, and yet it became a huge part of your identity and your brand and drew people to you. Can you think of something? like that or might seem simple to other people, but it became like the ethos of what you guys were known for? Hey, you know, I think early on the sense of transparency around everything in our food

from just how much we were prepping and showing you what we're prepping to, again, showing you the source board of where everything's being sourced from. And it sounds so simple. And again, when we did it back then, a lot of people, the reaction was, that's silly, you don't need to do that in fast food. No one needs to know where the food comes from. Today, it's exciting to see that most places have some version of that information available for customers. And I think ultimately the consumer has started to demand and ask those questions once you give it to them. So I think that has been exciting, this journey of transparency of connecting customers to their food choices in a deeper way. What about some of the early learnings, mistakes or things that was like, hey, we were super idealistic, right?

We wanted to change the world, which you need that idealism to even want to enter into. that space. There's that old quote, which is, if I knew how hard it was in the beginning, I would have never done it. So you've got to kind of go in. And that applies to so many things. It applies to starting a family, building a business, definitely building a billion dollar business. What was something that you were, you guys were very idealistic about in the beginning? And yeah, it didn't work out. But that was part of the learning process of creating a billion dollar brand. Yeah, I think being such young entrepreneurs, it forced us to be students of everything in food.

We had to learn it all from scratch. And it forced us to just have this deep sense of curiosity around everything, of how things worked, of how people do it, and then ultimately how we maybe wanted to do it differently. And I would say today, we still try to maintain that level of curiosity. It's important for us to,

the customer is changing so quickly. The world of food is changing so quickly. Consumer behavior, all of it is shifting faster than ever. And so for us, staying really close to the consumer is important. But back then, yeah, there's so many parts of our business that have evolved and, you know, from how many things, I mean, how many things we used to prep in the restaurant that just didn't need to be prepped to just thinking about how to create more efficiency and just thinking about the team member experience. You know, we talk a lot about our

customers, but our team members are the heart of our business. There's 6,000 team members that show up every day to prep our food and interact and serve our, and create hospitality for our customers. And they're so important. And so we really spend a lot of time thinking about the team member experience, too. And that has evolved in incredible ways. So, yeah, I'll say the sweet green you see today is almost everything is different than when it started 16 years ago. And it will continue to evolve. But ultimately, the premise of redefining fast food and connecting people to real food is still stronger than ever. You're talking about evolving.

One of the super interesting things that you told me you guys are up to is there's now starting to be robots in the picture. Can you talk about that? Sure. We, you know, we've spent a lot of time, like I was saying, really thinking about the full. restaurant experience, both for the customer and the team member, and just, you know, our belief on how it evolves and how you ultimately, where it goes in the future. And, you know, we, a few years ago, we started to see a lot of different, you know, automated solutions kind of being launched and tested in the industry and the space. And we got really excited about how those

can be built into a customer experience and a restaurant model to really optimize around human experience and connection and remove more of like the repetitive tasks that exist in a restaurant. And we met these other fellow entrepreneurs from a company called Spice, these four MIT engineers that built basically an automated version of a sweet green make line. And, you know, had some, you know, raised some great money, had some success, launched a few restaurants. And ultimately, you know, we came together at some point and decided to join forces. So we acquired them. And basically, they built, you know, a version of their automation into a sweet green. And so last year we opened two of them, one in Illinois, one here in Huntington Beach.

And it's been really exciting to see this new sweep green format that really thinks about just a completely different customer and team member experience. And in the goal around, you know, the automation is really exciting. The technology is really exciting and it just works really well. You know, just the focus on accuracy and throughput and just consistency and, you know, all the benefits that you get from this technology. But what's more exciting and actually where we spent a lot of time was really thinking about the experience that this technology sits in and what the customer sees when they walk in who they interact with and what the team member experiences as well. And it's been really exciting to see a lot of pressure removed from the team member, which allows them to really interact with customers and focus more on hospitality. So I'm sure you've been into a sweet green at peak lunch rush and it can be an intense experience for everyone involved. Busy.

Yeah. And you know, in these formats, we're noticing it's just. It's really exciting to see some of that pressure removed and the team member is able to really focus on greeting the guests, you know, spending time with guests that maybe have never been to a Sweet Green playing them aside saying, have you been here before? Can I tell you about Sweet Green? Let me talk to you about our menu. Let me help you order versus the, you know, fast-paced assembly line. So what does that look like? You know, you have a location in Illinois and there's one here in California, Huntington Beach. Yes. I haven't been to it yet. So walks through like customer walks in and you take. a look at the menu, you're ready to order, you place that order with a human being.

So when you walk in, you know, also again to the point of really wanting to make sure we highlight and show all the incredible work that goes into the food, you are greeted with our kitchen where you see our team members prepping and cutting and roasting, all the food that goes into the menu. That food is then put into the infinite kitchen, which is our, which is the machine. And customer walks in, they can look at a menu board, they can order on a kiosk on their phone or if they want to order with a team member, they can. And that order gets sent to the make line and the automated make line and your order's ready in a few minutes. And can you watch from the outside, you can see your order being assembled? Can you like see? Yeah, the whole idea

was again, full transparency. So you can see, you know, the bowls going down the track. You can see your order being made. And then a team member, you know, grabs the, the bowler plate, finishes it at a finishing station with some ingredients like fresh herbs or a whole avocado or some of these, like a whole piece of salmon, things that are not in the machine, and then it gets handed to the customer from the team member. So the idea was still to preserve and highlight these moments of human interaction, and if anything, elevate them. Do you see a future where every restaurant that you guys have in your network and future ones you build all have this robotic system? You know, we have the two open, and it's been really exciting to watch them, and they're still

pilots, but so far it's been really wonderful. We're learning a ton every day, but the goal is to, yeah, to scale them to future super nutrients. We've shared that. that this year in 2024 we are opening, you know, between eight and ten of them. You know, one of the things that I see, and I'm sure you see it too, is that as you start to get more educated about the world of health, and you see that quality makes a difference, and you feel better, and you start helping your family make decisions that are better for them because you love them and you care about them, you naturally start to get excited about, like, oh, this is interesting. And for some people, it could be, hey, I want to work at a company.

that's more in alignment with my vision goals. And for other people, it's like, hey, like you guys, I want to go and found a company. And I think that one thing that's really exciting in this space, like health and eating healthy for young people is like actually cool. I can't tell you how many young people I see ordering sweet green, right around like when school gets out in the area that I'm in, and there's like so many young women and men that are in line

that just got out of the local high school or whatever. and it's like, oh, wow, like, it's actually like cool to eat healthy. And that's what a lot of my nephews and nieces are telling me, it's like, that's a big part of the zeitgeist. And for some individuals, like you guys were when you were in school and me too, you feel like, oh, I actually want to take a shout at like starting something in this space because I want to see these healthier options that are there. Any advice that you have for budding young entrepreneurs that are like, hey, like, I've been listening

this podcast, other stuff, like, I want to go or I have an idea for starting this business. What is literally like some of the first couple steps? Obviously, everybody's situation is different that you would recommend for somebody ultimately being more successful in actually launching and succeeding in that business. Yeah, you know, I think it's really exciting to see, to your point, the customer connection with food and just like the desire around this type of eating completely shift. And that even in our 16 years, we've seen that. And, you know, I hope it continues there. But that is really what will shift behavior ultimately of consumers and shift, I think, allow our

market to grow. But yeah, I get really excited about seeing all the different entrepreneurs and innovators jumping into the space and trying to create solutions. And, you know, my advice would always be someone that is really focused on product is just, you know, be really obsessive around the product and what you're trying to solve and the problem you're trying to solve. and the problem you're trying to solve with that product and make sure that the product is really good. And ultimately, that will mean having to evolve and pivot in ways. But I think if you're obsessive about your product and the customer

and understanding what problems you're solving for that customer, I think staying grounded in that is really important. Which feels like it goes back to something that you mentioned originally, which is that you guys were trying to fix this for you. You were trying to solve and scratch your own itch. And I think that that's an important part of wanting to solve this problem is that you have to sort of live and breathe it. Not always, right?

There are some examples of entrepreneurs that were solving a problem on behalf of a community that they didn't necessarily exactly represent, but they had to literally like a method actor put themselves completely in that space and live and breed that so they can understand what are all the ins and outs and nuances that led people who have tried this before to be unsuccessful

or people that haven't tried. try this to be successful in other areas, but they overlook something. What do they overlook and how can I solve that and actually make a difference in that? And when you do that generally, that's when I see people feel that early product market fit. Like, hey, it may not be perfect, but these core things that you've solved for are exciting. And it makes me want to gravitate towards this product. And sometimes those things are like super duper simple, right? I know we were chatting earlier. We have a mutual friend, Jason Karp, him, his wife and the wife's brother, they started Human Co.

You guys actually sell some of their chocolates and snacks and almonds, which I was really excited about. How long has that been that you guys have been selling like health year for you? Yeah, I thought that was new. I hadn't seen it for, I hadn't seen that before. And it's like their best selling bar came literally out of an experiment of their team, making it in their local. restaurant in New York, which was like losing money and wasn't successful, you know.

And I just love stories like that that you scratch your own itch and you keep on tinkering, tinkering, tinkering until you make something that people are obsessed about. And I think you guys have done that with your brand. So I want to congratulate you and your founders. I still have a couple more questions. Yeah, but just want to add that in. What is it like now going from, you know, one store startup, scaling, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and now it's a public company, right?

What are some of the unique constraints, especially for a team that is like, hey, yes, we want to make this now stock price successful for everybody, and we are still committed to this ethos, right? What is that like? And how do you attract even the right public market investors that get that message? Yeah, you know, it's been a really wild couple of years. We went public a little over two years ago. And it's been really exciting to, you know, A, have the capital and balance sheet to grow and make investments in things like Spice and opening Sweet Green in all these new communities. And for us, I think it's just created, you know, we're still just as focused on the mission of as sweet green as ever.

That's the driving force of, you know, we're trying to build a business that can be generational around for 100 plus years. That's around for, you know, long after the three of us. But, you know, the focus, I think being public is really given us way more discipline and focus to focus on the business outcomes and make sure that, again, this idea of conscious capitalism, the bigger we get and the stronger our business, the more impact we can have. And ultimately, you know, Sween is not, you know, we're not, even though we want to create a lot of impact in the world, we're not a charity. We're a for-profit business that, you know, profitability is important, but, you know, we're really excited about the decisions we make. If we make them the right way, we'll feed the mission and feed our bottom line. Yeah, it's super important. And I think the other thing that's important is that success, it's a Tony Robbins quote,

but success begets success. When you have more role models, like, has there ever been a public company that is a truly health committed, you know, restaurant concept? Do you know? You know, I think when we look at public companies and large companies at scale, we get a lot of inspiration from different companies, both in food and outside of food. I think for years what Whole Foods is doing was really inspiring. And, you know, Walter Rob, one of the founders was an early investor and mentor of ours and learned a ton from him.

Probably one of the more inspiring entrepreneurs we ever met. And so, you know, then I think we look at other folks and what they've done in different industries, whether it's, you know, electric cars or, you know, other large companies that have disrupted different industries. And, you know, we try to be just as inspired insider category as we are outside of it. Last couple questions, innovation. How do you guys actually approach innovation and think about it, right? you know, like literally like testing recipes, trying out stuff. Like what does that actually look like from a team structure?

Because I'm super curious about that. Yeah. I mean, it's a really, it's probably one of the more fun parts of my day and job is really, you know, we have this part of our team that spends so much time listening and interacting with our customer, just understand the consumer insights around what they're eating, how they feel about sweet green, you know, what their needs states are, and just really trying to listen to our customer as much as possible. And we take those inputs and we create strategies that then our culinary team, you know, like,

then creates and are testing recipes and flavors and products within those constraints. And so, you know, we have a sweet green kitchen lab at our headquarters here in West Adams where we have a culinary team that is just, you know, ideating and testing things within those bounds. And really, you know, sometimes it's more focused, like create exactly this and sometimes it's more blue sky. We try to really, as a team in general, inside of the culinary team and outside, just really pick our heads up and look at what else is going on in the world and what other people are consuming, what other people are saying, what other people are thinking? Not because we want that to affect us too much. We just want to understand context. Are there whispers that you're hearing for your customers right now that it's like, oh, okay, cool, that's a thread we might want to pull on in the future.

I know you're a public company, you can't share a lot of stuff or other things, but are there any kind of interesting themes that you guys are exploring right now? We're exploring a ton of things. You know, I think that what's interesting about the innovation process is you kind of take all these inputs. You think about 10 things. You probably test like five of them and you land on two and launch one. So you're always thinking, and some of those things might just be the innovation for next year. And so for us, we're always trying to stay broad enough and really think about the sweet green offering experience in the next two, three, four, five years. And I think we finally built this really exciting team where we can really start to think a little more long term.

But we're still super excited about protein plates and the oils. You know, that's, it's a pretty new launch for us. So we're still trying to just educate and inform our customers about it. You know, it's, and honestly, it's really exciting to see how many, when we go to these cities, every time we get to introduce sweet green to a new customer, a new city, a new community, and just tell them our story. Now with this broadened menu, it's really exciting to just welcome and acquire new customers. into Sweet Green. And we just opened our first restaurant in Seattle, Pack North West, last week. And again, just really excited to see how folks respond to having this healthy, convenient

option that still lacking in so many parts of the country. Well, one thing I learned that I didn't know is that the sweet in Sweet Green came from the fact that you guys initially had Greek yogurt on the menu. Soft serve. Yeah. That's right. Greek yogurt. It was called Sweetflow, and it was delicious and I miss it. You miss it. Well, maybe one day you guys, get back into that space. Who knows? Who knows? This has been great. I super appreciate you coming on the podcast and telling us a story of the decision making, the nuances, how to implement these things at scale. Because, you know, as you know, Nicholas, like, if we don't actually create a world and environment where we are surrounded by healthy food, where eating healthy

is actually easier than eating non-healthy. It's never going to be a situation where we are getting to the root of chronic disease. We have to be an environment that allows for that. And a big part of that is making extremely tasty food at the end of the day. People are not going to eat things that are not tasty. Finding a price point that makes sense for that consumer and that consumer. category, right, especially in the world and economy that we live in. And meeting the, you know, customer where they're at with where their demands are about things like transparency,

wanting to know, quality of ingredients. And I think you guys have done all three of those things and more. And you've really shown as an example that, number one, this is possible, but also it's needed. And lastly, that, you know, you guys took a risk in trying to start this. And, you know, what I like to say to people out there is that the food information world, especially on social media, is filled with, hey, here's an example of things that people are doing wrong, right? The classic video, TikTok, Instagram is somebody going down the aisle and focusing on negativity. I get it. We all have a negativity bias and we need to be aware of how much toxins are

in the environment. But one thing that I always share with my audience is that as much as we point out what's negative that's out there, we have to make sure we celebrate and support the people that are doing it the right way. Because just like the news doesn't usually lead with something amazing that's going on in the world that day. It's usually leading with here's something super terrible. In our own lives, it can be easy to overlook the people that are the good players that are actually just putting in the daily work to make food tasty, accessible, fun, transparent. And so I wanted to have you on to really get a chance to acknowledge you guys for that and to take a moment to celebrate and say, hey, as much as there are bad actors that are out there who usually

90% of that is being uninformed, maybe 10% of that is nefarious activity. That's how I generally feel. We also want to miscelebrate the good actors, the good teams, the people that are actually making a difference in the world. And I hope that you feel that we've got a chance to do that with having you on the podcast today. This is super fun. Thanks for having me. Where can people follow you? And also just a little bit of a, you know, a lot of people who may not be familiar with Sweet Green. They don't know about sort of the different ways that they can get access to it, right? So if you wouldn't mind sharing about your app and a couple of things that you might want to point people to. Yeah, sure. So I mean, you can find out everything about myself. I'm on

just Nicholas Jamann on all social channels and then at Sweet Green on all social channels. And yeah, today we are 22 restaurants in 20 states. So in most major cities and most parts of the country and growing. So hopefully we come to a, you know, your city soon if we're not there yet. and ultimately we have a sweet green app which drives so much of our so much of our business and excited to you know to see the convenience that drives for a lot of our customers. Awesome. Well, thank you for taking a risk and helping us make the world a healthier place. Appreciate you, brother.

Thanks, you too. Hi, everyone, Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean that. the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share with a friend. Share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go,

I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy to digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition. to mindset, to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole-body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-H-I-T-com and click on the tab that says,

try this.