Pursuit of Wellness - Sweetgreen Founder: Switching From Seed Oils To Olive Oil, Using Grass Fed Meat & Making Healthy Food Accessible

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Ep. #92 On today’s episode of Pursuit of Wellness, I am joined by Sweetgreen’s co-founder Nicolas Jammet. He explains how a senior project transformed into a nationwide movement aimed at redefining fast food through transparent, nutritious offerings. Nicolas highlights the evolution of Sweetgreen's menu, which emphasizes protein-rich dishes and the use of wholesome ingredients like extra virgin olive oil. He also shares insights into his personal wellness journey and how significant life events like marriage and fatherhood have influenced his health perspective. Together, we discuss Sweetgreen's commitment to soil health, seasonal menus, and its mission to expand access to wholesome food, laying the groundwork for a sustainable future. Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Mari’s Newsletter click here! For Nicolas Jammet’s Instagram click here! For Sweetgreen's Website click here! For Sweetgreen’s Instagram click here! For POW Brand Promo Codes click here! Sponsored By: Bite is offering our listeners 20% off your first order. Go to trybite.com/POW or use code POW at checkout to claim this deal Go to eightsleep.com/pow to save $200 off the Pod by Eight Sleep Visit Carawayhome.com/PURSUIT to take advantage of this limited-time offer for 10% off your next purchase Topics Discussed: 02:45 - The story of Sweetgreen 05:46 - Challenges of scaling a business 10:06 - Shift in trends with customers  16:35 - Customer faves 18:13 - Removing seed oils from Sweetgreen 22:47 - Adding steak to the menu  24:19 - Thoughts on diet and nutrition trends 27:55 - Sweetgreen’s 230 locations  30:46 - Nicolas Jammet’s personal health journey  33:20 - Maintaining health while being a parent  34:43 - Nutrition during fertility  37:02 - Sweetgreen’s supply chain team 41:06 - Focus on protein plates and opening new locations 42:16 - Having a strong connection with your food

You know, I view what we do in a way as like preventative medicine. It's like if you can really think about your diet in the right way, so much of the chronic illness and metabolic diseases like diet related and preventable. This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. I'm so excited for you to listen to today's episode. We are talking to Nicolas Jermais, the founder of Sweetgreen. We all know and love Sweetgreen for their salads. We've all had it. It's a very well-known brand. It was really interesting to hear from Nicolas today all about the story of Sweetgreen, how it came to be and how it has evolved over time. I was particularly excited to talk to him today because they have

recently switched from seed oils to olive oil. And it was really interesting hearing about the decision making behind the scenes and how much Sweetgreen really has caught up with the trends. It's very obvious to me that Nicholas is very on the pulse when it comes to what's going on in the health industry, what we're learning. He is friendly with a lot of the people who have been on this show, like Max Lugavere, Paul Saladino, experts in the field, and he's soaking in all that information and bringing it back to his brand, which I think is really applaudable. He wanted to define and rethink fast food. And when you think about it, sweet green really is a convenient fast option that is super duper healthy. And it's also great for macro tracking. So for anyone who is on a fitness journey and tracking

their protein, their carbs, their fats, sweet green is such a good option. We talk about how the conversation and food has dramatically changed over the years and the consumer behavior within the store. The trend shifts from the start to now. I feel like running a food business in America is a really great way of seeing how consumer habits have changed over the years, why they switched from seed oils and if it increased their costs a lot. Grass-fed, grass-finished meats. It turns out that Sweetgreen only uses grass-fed, grass-finished meats, which I thought was incredible. The nutrient density and power of red meat. Macro tracking. Nicholas's own fitness journey. He lost 42 pounds and focused on diet, macro, sleep,

strength training, and hydrating. Of course, I also asked him about his kids. He has beautiful children. And I asked about his wife's pregnancy and what she ate because I'm obviously obsessed right now. So I think you guys are going to love this conversation. I learned so much about Sweetgreen and the brand, and I know you will too. So let's jump into this conversation with Nicholas. Nicholas, welcome to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Thanks for having me. We are so excited to have you. Everyone in the office and my husband and myself are huge fans of Sweetgreen. For anyone listening who doesn't know, Nicholas is the co-founder and chief concept

officer at Sweetgreen. I'd love to start by hearing the story of Sweetgreen. How did it come to be? Give us the background. Sweetgreen was born 16 years ago now. And it was born with my two friends, Jonathan and Nathaniel. And we were seniors at Georgetown. So we all went to school there. And I'm from New York, they're from LA. And we were all used to having more options in our life that fit our dietary needs and just made us feel good. And for some reason in Georgetown at school, the food options were not good. And so we quickly wrote a business plan.

Our parents were all entrepreneurs. And so for us, if we had this problem, we said, let's fix it. Let's create a solution. And we wrote a business plan and raised 350 grand our senior year and opened our first sweet green location right off campus about a month after graduation. And it was in this tiny 500 square foot hut that was a former burger tavern. And we opened our doors and the response was pretty incredible. And the more we started to really dig into this idea of, okay, we want to create a healthy, delicious fast food

alternative and really almost redefine fast food. We realized it wasn't just an opportunity at Georgetown or in DC. It was a much bigger opportunity to rethink kind of the whole industry. And seeing where fast food had evolved to and where it was shifting to, we wanted to really redefine and rethink fast food, the experience, the product, the conversation around fast food, and ultimately the connection a customer has with their food and their health. And so it started as just solving a problem for ourselves. And we quickly realized this is a much bigger opportunity to create a

real business, but also to create a lot of change in the food industry. I feel like that is really how the best businesses start. It's like a personal solution that you really want and then ultimately becomes something that other people can appreciate too, which obviously Sweetgreen has really taken over in my eyes. How did you guys land on the name Sweetgreen? Funny story. So at first the name was a little simpler. It was just Greens. And then when we learned about things like trademarks and IP, we realized we needed to make it a bit more distinct. And Sweetgreen at first was actually healthy bowls and salads and soft serve. And so lots of late nights, lots of brainstorming and Sweetgreen soft serve salad.

The name was born and we loved it as one strong mark by itself. And yeah. It stuck around. That's right. I don't think I ever experienced the frozen yogurt era of Sweetgreen. It was delicious. We had it for about the first, you know, eight years of our business, eight to nine years. And it was this organic, healthy, tart fro-yo that had all these great toppings. And so I miss it dearly. Yeah. RIP. But now you have all these amazing new features on the Sweetgreen menu, which we'll talk about. How difficult has it been? And having my own company, I understand when you want to source the best ingredients and do it in a healthy way to scale that kind of business can be really challenging. How has that been to take that on? You know, it's been a really fun 16 years and really exciting journey. And even

though 16 years sounds like a lot for us, we are still very much in the early stages of what we want to build. I think the intention and purpose of Sweetgreen was really to redefine the industry and change how people think about food, change their access to it, and ultimately change the conversation with food in their life. And so we have 230 restaurants today. It is still pretty small comparatively to other fast food chains and what this can be. And ultimately, if you see where consumer behavior is shifting, it's really exciting.

And honestly, the conversation in food the past 16 years has dramatically changed. And customers connecting food to health and how they feel has changed so much. So for us, starting Sweetgreen, the purpose was really simple, was to create this healthy, delicious fast food where you didn't have to sacrifice a few things.

So when we built the first menu and business plan around Sweetgreen, we realized that all the foods people craved the most, that were the most accessible, that were the coolest brands, were all the least healthy. And so for us, that was the tension. The premise was, could you build all those things?

Could you build an experience, a menu, an offering, a supply chain for food that was all those things, was really delicious and craveable and people desired it, was accessible, you could find it, was convenient, and was wrapped in this cool brand,

but also was good for you and made you feel physically good. And I think the conversation the last 15 years around even just the state of our metabolic health in this country and how people are really starting to think about just their health span and how they feel, especially connected to how they're eating and their lifestyle, has just been really exciting.

And so for us, as we've scaled Sweetgreen, the intention and focus has been so dramatically on how do we scale this food ethos and how do we scale what is really important to us, what's important to our consumers, their health, and ultimately what will change the industry. And so our menu has evolved like crazy. I mean, I think today there's only one,

there's many ingredients, but there is one bowl that is from our existing menu. And so we're big believers in constant evolution. And we started in a college town in DC. Now we're at 230 locations feeding folks and consumers all around the country, 20 states almost. And so for us, what gets us really excited is this idea of creating this healthy,

craveable fast food offering that can go mainstream and really appeal to anyone. And so as we've grown, we've broadened our menu, broadened our offering, and more recently focused on more things like protein, right? As we've really listened to the consumer and just learned more about how foods affect your metabolic health and how they make you feel and how they connect to your lifestyle goals and outcomes. And, uh, so the evolution of our menu has been really exciting and, you know, how we think so much about the quality of our food starts and ends with our supply chain. Yeah. We built this incredible supply chain of all these incredible growers, producers, uh, and food partners that, um, you know, we source according to our ethos. And being able to grow

with so many of them and really think about the demand and the supply of what goes into our food. But ultimately, for us, it ends up being about full transparency. So really doing all that work, but then just sharing that information with the consumer so they know what they're eating and they can make those choices for themselves. It is really interesting hearing you refer to sweet green kind of as fast food because I never viewed it that way. But it kind of has revolutionized the convenience food industry because it really is this super healthy option that's really customizable. And just seeing some of the changes you guys have made recently, you're clearly listening to the customer. I think we're in a really interesting era of health right now. Obviously, on the podcast here, we talk a ton about nutrition and ingredients. And I'm just seeing these conversations become more mainstream. And I think with podcasts, that information is so out there

now. We have people like Max Lugavere and Paul Saladino and tons of health experts speaking to this information. How have you noticed the trends shift from your customers at the beginning of Sweetgreen to now? Like what are they looking for? What do they care about? Yeah, you know, we look, I also love to zoom out and just look at fast food and customer behavior

and like how we got to where we are today. And if you just look at the prevalence of fast food, even looking back a few generations, it was built and born and grew based on this idea of just fueled by convenience and vehicular culture and changing in family dynamics. And it served a real purpose and it does and it's really valuable to how people want to live their lives

and the convenience they crave. And I think at the same time, if you look at that same period, the inputs that go into the food and the ingredients used and just the nutrient density of the food, I just think the broader health of that food has just declined. And so today, I think a study I read last week is over 50% of Americans eat fast food multiple times per week, which is great because it's convenient and it is like serving them a purpose in their life. But we think there's a way to do that while also serving your health outcomes. And so, you know, I think looking at where fast food has gone is really interesting, but the consumer behavior has shifted a ton. And I think if you look at, you know,

Sweet Grin is born in 2007 and the conversation on food then was really exciting. Whether it was some of the documentaries coming out, the Michael Pollan books and the Super Size Me. There was this flood of information hitting the consumer around food. Today I think

for better or for worse, there's more information out there than ever. In a way, honestly, it's really hard for the consumer to understand what makes sense. There's opposing views on everything. We can talk about that when it comes to seed oils and protein and honestly, what you should be eating. And what you just said, the word customized, and I think this idea of personalized health is really where personally I think consumers should focus is there is this core set of universal beliefs of just like eat whole food,

avoid highly processed food that are universal to everyone. But then outside of that, I think the definition of health and what people should be eating is personalized and custom. And people, what works for you might not work for me. And so much of our offering at Sweetgreen and as we thought about broadening the menu was creating that range of options so customers can self-select into whatever health journey or nutrition journey makes sense for them

or whatever flavor journey or whatever they're feeling, whether their goals have changed and they're working out way more. And all these things are so interconnected that there is not this one black and white rule of this is how everyone should eat. And so at the end of the day for us, it's been creating that transparency,

but also that range of options for customers. If someone wants 90 grams of protein in their dinner and they want to be able to get that with clean inputs they trust, that's great. If someone just wants a lighter bowl for lunch, creating that range of options for customers and that transparency on how things are sourced and what's going into your food ultimately is the priority.

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respiratory weight, and time in each sleep stage. On average, pod users see their sleep quality improved by 32% after just one month on the pod. Go to 8sleep.com slash pow to save $200 off the pod by 8sleep. That's 8sleep.com slash pow. 8sleep currently ships within the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and select countries in Europe. I love that. I am such a big fan and I subscribe by the idea of bio-individuality. I think everyone's so different, even just me and my husband. Like I cannot eat the same way he does. It doesn't make me feel good and vice versa. So I love that you guys come at it from that angle. The protein plates are my new obsession. I did a little video with you guys recently where I made my own bowl and I was able to get it to like 40 grams of protein, which is

amazing. They always say 30 grams plus per meal of protein. And you guys have made it so easy. There's one bowl you have, the harvest bowl with the chicken that has 60 plus grams of protein, which is like perfect for my husband. He would love that. Here on the team, the girls love the miso glazed samit.

That must be a popular one. You have just listed our two most popular bowls. Oh, really? Yeah. The harvest bowl is kind of like our, you know, we joke, it's like our Big Mac. It is our most popular bowl. And ultimately, it also has been a bowl where, you know, we hear this often where folks are like, I'm not a salad person.

And we're like, well, for us, sweet green, detach yourself from the word salad. It's about a bowl full of like nutrient-dense, hearty ingredients, as hearty as you want it. It can be all greens and protein. And ultimately, that's why Protein Plates was born. But the Harvest Bowl is just, you know, nutrient-dense, very filling, has protein, has cheese, has rice, and has been the bowl that has converted the most non-salad eaters into sweet green.

The most bodybuilders. So it's really exciting to see people. That one has a cult following. And when I get that, I do add the bigger, the herb-roasted chicken. And yeah, the protein macaroni is amazing. Perfect for post-workout, perfect for the bodybuilders or, you know, anyone listening who's trying to put on lean muscle. I feel like that's amazing. You guys also made a very big announcement recently, which I, my ears perked up right away when you said you officially switched from any seed oils to only using extra virgin olive oil, which was a big move.

What led to that decision? So over the course of the 16 years, I was talking about how much of our offering has evolved. And so much of that is us looking at our menu every year or two and being like, what can we make better? What can we improve? What is the conversation out there with customers? What have we learned as a business? How do we want to really pull customers in terms of our offering? So we're really proud of how our menu has evolved. But the last couple of years, there's been this growing conversation around things like protein and fats and really thinking about macros. And the average customer is just thinking about those conversations

in a way that just was not the reality a few years ago. So it's been really exciting to watch that conversation, listen, and just for us learn. And for us, we've always been really proud of all the inputs. When you go into a sweetgreen, you can see our board that lists every ingredient down to all the fats, the oils, everything we use, where they're sourced from, what's organic, what's not.

So customers can really make the choice for themselves of what they want to eat. When it comes to oils, it was just a growing conversation. And for us, it felt like a really exciting opportunity to talk about extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil and shifting all of our cooking oils. We were using, and we still use in some dressings, hyaluronic sunflower oil, which we're very proud of. And I think if you look at the fatty acid profiles, they're so similar. I think there is this broader demonization of just like black and white seed oil or not. There's so much that it depends so much on how you're using it, what you're using it, how much, just like anything, there's nuance in everything. And so we really tried to be students of this and just learn as

best we can what's important to the customer, but also what we believe is really important from a nutrient density point of view and just our recipes and ultimately the flavor of our food. And so as much as we were excited about extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil for all the benefits nutritionally, we also just love the taste of them. And so for us, this is just really thinking about the flavor of our food

and shifting all of our cooking oils to those two. And the response has been pretty incredible for that community that really cares. There was a lot of celebration and I think it also just sparked some interest in a lot of other customers that weren't thinking about that. And they're like, Sweetgreen is talking about this. Should I care about this? And it really makes you think of really being conscious of all the inputs that go into your food.

And if you look at, honestly, like CTO prevalence the last couple generations, I think we're eating 20X more seed oil in our diet than we used to 100 years ago. And honestly, that is because of just the cost, shelf life, friability, being able to use it in frying capability. And it's just in everything. The percentage of our calories

in our average diet that come from highly processed snacks and breads and all that, it's just infiltrated our diet in such a significant way that even if you try to avoid it, it's really hard. And to my point of nuance, even if you try to avoid certain ones versus others, it's just really hard to know what to do and how to actually avoid it.

So for us, it was just trying to create a really clean message and clean product and be transparent about it. Yeah, I think it was a moment where people like me were so excited about the ingredient, but also it showed how connected you guys are with the conversation, with the customer, like a really cool, you know, as a business owner, I really applaud you guys because I know how difficult a shift like that can be from an expense perspective. If you don't mind me asking, did it increase costs a lot? You know, for us, as we evolve our menu, we look at where we want to take it from an assortment and flavor and also cost. And for us, there's places we want to invest in our menu and places

where we can offset that. It was an investment. We have an incredible supply chain and ops team that was really able to be smart about how we offset that, how we make up that cost. But ultimately it was an investment. Olive oil markets, if you read now, are at an all-time high. Those will come down at some point. But ultimately for us, the quality of our food and connecting with our guests is really important. And being able to say we were the first national fast food chain that talked about this and made that change is really,. And being able to say we were the first national fast food chain that talked about this and made that change is really, really exciting and something we're very proud of. It's monumental, honestly. I think it was a really incredible step in the right direction

and really inspiring. I hope the other fast food companies follow suit, but really, really cool moment. And extra virgin olive oil is one of the most ancient anti-inflammatory ingredients we can use. So I thought that was an incredible decision. You guys also introduced steak on the menu, which I'm so pumped about. I just had Paul Saladino on yesterday. Oh, love that. Oh, he's incredible. So he's going to be excited.

Why did you guys make that decision? Yeah, so steak is actually just something we're testing. And I would say as we think about the evolution and direction of our menu, we are always testing things. So as we talk to our consumers and look at where their appetites and diets are leaning, this conversation on protein is stronger than ever. And so we've been learning a lot around

different protein supply chains and how to really think about that product offering. And so steak is something we're just testing in a few restaurants, something we're really excited about, and really spent a lot of time exploring how we would do steak. We've never had steak on our menu. And so the more we learned about those supply chains,

you could do a whole episode on that. And maybe you did talk about this with Paul, but the grass-fed regenerative cattle programs are really fascinating. And the range of what exists domestically versus internationally and what things can be called is all very fascinating. Honestly, we're still learning. But the program we are testing is a grass-fed, grass-finished program.

I didn't know that. And again, it's just a test. So it has to do well for us to actually be confident for it to actually roll out. But we're a brand that just believes in testing a lot of things. And so some things work, some things don't. But I think the implications of having more exciting protein options like that for our consumers and for folks that we want to be our consumers in the future is really exciting. Do you feel like the shift from, I know red meat used to be a little feared in America.

There was kind of these myths around it. And now people like Paul are starting to shatter those beliefs. Do you feel like that shift is happening? Or I guess you'll see after the test? Yeah, I think there are definitely shifts happening and consumers are forming opinions for themselves based on their own dietary preferences and what they want to self-select into. In general, my belief at Sweetgreen is just not really to go so extreme on any sort of diet or thought on food aside from just avoiding highly processed ingredients and

focusing on really clean whole foods and regenerative foods. But I think there is a group of people that have realized it just makes them feel better. And I think the more you can learn around, connect those dots of what you eat, how it makes you feel, to your point, it's a personal decision. And there are some, if you're a vegan and you want to continue to build into that lifestyle, then that is your choice and it makes you feel good for some reason. That's amazing. And for us, it's about having that range of options at Sweetgreen. But ultimately, I feel like there is this growing conversation around the nutrient density and power of red meat. And again, that has to work for you and work for your body. And I think so much of what I'm learning is around the quality of how that is sourced, not just on the nutrient density of the actual product, but ultimately also

the regenerative nature of what that does from a sustainability point of view as well. Since moving to Texas, I've gotten so into cooking. I'm cooking every single meal and really enjoying my kitchen and also my cookware. I'm obsessed with caraway cookware and I'm slowly building a caraway kitchen full of the cookware and products. And I love the fact that they're non-toxic and so gorgeous. I've been loving the baking sets lately. I'm cooking sweet potatoes, vegetables. I've even done a couple of cakes for Greg's birthday.

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really trying to tinker their diet to muscle gain or weight loss or whatever it may be. You said you have 233 locations? 230 locations, yeah. Okay. Where are they? I mean, you don't have to list every state, but I'm just curious, are they in the like major cities or are they starting to pop up in the middle of the country? We are in most major cities in pretty much every region of the country. So lots in the whole Northeast, New York, Boston, DC, New Hampshire, all over there, Florida, Atlanta, Texas, all over the Midwest, and then up and down the coast,

California, Colorado, just opened our first restaurant in Seattle. So basically every major part of the country so far. Okay. Because I've done a few road trips across America and sometimes you hit these patches of the US where you're like, what am I going to eat? Like if you're someone who's health conscious, there's no option. So it would be really cool to see how Sweetgreen would do in

those areas. I couldn't agree more. And I think when you get out of some of these larger cities, that's where it does start to get really hard from an access point of view to connect with food that maybe fits your goals. And I think whether you're in airports or on the road in smaller towns, and ultimately the goal for us at Sweetgreen is to create a brand and business model that can be opened anywhere. Really to create full access to this kind of food. We believe everyone deserves access to healthy food that fits their lifestyle. And so it's been really exciting to see us open in places that quite honestly 10 years ago we probably didn't imagine we would open. Yeah. I think it would be such a nice way of giving that option. I mean even with our

company at Bloom we like try to make sure we're in targets everywhere, Walmarts everywhere, just so we can be as accessible as possible. Because you kind of do realize when you go in certain areas of the States that there are a lack of options. So that's exciting. Are you in any airports yet? We are not, but you know, it's one of my dreams. You know, as we looked at the traditional fast food model and building Sweetgreen in that lens, it's been exciting to see us expand in certain ways. We opened our first pull-through, drive-through location a year ago.

No way. And my co-founders and I always dreamed as we would drive down the highway and see these pylons and see these fast food drive-throughs and said, that is so convenient and so delicious, we can't wait till Sweetgreen can do that. And so ultimately, as we start to expand Sweetgreen, really start to lean even more into convenience and the existing behavior that customers are interacting with their food, it gets even more powerful.

I feel like an airport, I mean, I would just die because I don't eat at airports ever. I bring my own food, a Sweetgreen bowl or salad on a plane. Done. Love that idea. I'm a big plain salad person. I bring my sweet green salad on the plane and the looks you get when someone looks and says, oh man, they thought about this before. Or the first question is, did you get that in the airport? And I say, not yet. Sorry. They don't even know that you're the co-founder. You're just like, yeah. Every time I bring food on the plane, I feel like everyone's staring at me, but it's like the way to go. It's the best hack. As someone who's super busy,

as a co-founder, I'm curious about your own personal health journey. Has being a part of a health brand shifted the way that you approach your life? You know, building Sweetgreen and being part of a brand that is around wellness and food system has definitely shifted my whole perspective on food. It's just made me more curious to learn about all the inputs and food and diet is so important. Obviously, I view what we do in a way as like preventative medicine. It's like if you can really think about your diet in the right way, so much of the chronic illness and metabolic diseases like diet related and preventable. And that goes beyond sweet green.

That's just consumers connecting with their diets in a different way. For me personally, it's made me think about everything from sleep to fitness. And for so many of the years building sweet green, the intensity and travel was real. And even for someone that had access to it, it made it really hard for me to actually live a lifestyle that I felt was pretty healthy. And a couple of years ago, I really shifted so much of my routine and behavior around not just what I'm eating and what I'm eating and really thinking about macros in a different way. And so much of that, as you think about the

evolution of Sweetgreen Menu, has gone in that direction. But but even just thinking about I've gone on a huge fitness journey I lost a lot of weight also about four years ago as I got married and was getting ready for my wedding I lost about 40-50 pounds and so much of that was around just really doubling down on diet and macros honestly sleep and then staying hydrated and then strength training just getting very deep into

the world with strength training. And as much as it started as a catalyst for physical health, it really has become more of like a mental health requirement for myself. I feel like when you have to perform at a high level every day, there kind of becomes this like necessity for a good routine and for good nutrition and good sleep. Otherwise you just simply won't function. My husband and I are very much in our travel hustle era right now. And it just becomes more and more challenging to stay on routine. And we're like scrambling to have all of our supplements ready and everything in line. And it just gets so hard. But it kind of is that thing that grounds you no matter where you are, what you're doing.

It almost becomes like it's not a choice anymore. It's just a non-negotiable. Yeah, totally. And you're a parent now too, right? I'm a parent. I have two sons, a three and a half year old and then a five month old. Oh, so you're in the thick of it.

Yeah, we're just getting out of the thick of it, but still in the thick of it. So how is it to stay healthy with two young kids? You know, I'd say having kids has also been probably one of the biggest catalysts in how I've thought about my own health differently, about my kids' health differently, even about my wife when she was pregnant and just thinking about, you know, the full cycle of what she's eating and down to breastfeeding. And you just learn a whole different dynamic around health and, you know, how it starts so early even before they're even born. And ultimately, I said the word sleep before, that becomes the most challenging part with kids.

And you just learn to prioritize. I mean, having kids just shifts your whole value set of what you prioritize. But health has become more important than ever. And honestly, seeing my kids, especially my oldest son, discover food, interact with food, and you realize so many of the habits and their palate is all built so young. And their relationship with food is so connected to the parents' relationship with food.

And so it's been really fascinating to watch that and build it and build his love for food and see how he interacts when he eats different foods. But it's made me really more conscious, honestly. And looking at the part that has been the most fascinating has been watching, honestly, my wife during pregnancy and after with breastfeeding and just seeing the effects on nutrition there has been wild. Okay. Out of curiosity, we talk a lot about fertility on the show because I'm trying to get pregnant right now. What was her diet like during pregnancy? Did she introduce new things? I mean, my wife is a goddess and a superhero and just the whole process of getting pregnant to

then birthing to being a parent now has just given me a whole new respect for her. But in terms of diet, it was really just around eating the foods your body craved and made you feel good. And so it was a lot of everything we just talked about, right? It's just really focusing on all that. So much of it was around stress and sleep. So much even for the male counterpart, like stress is a huge effect on, from what I understand on sperm fertility. And so really it was just thinking about all the

different dynamics. Food was a huge part of it, but just really being trying to focus on stress, which is easier said than done, obviously in a fast paced world. But at the end of the day, just listening to your body. Stress is like the hardest thing I think for me because I can eat the way they tell me to. I can take the supplements. I can do all the things but the stress is like the hard part. It's like how do you manage stress when you are responsible for so many people and so many things happening? Well it was fascinating to watch as my wife, got ready for pregnancy. There was so much, if not more mental prep than physical, which I didn't realize. And so we had an incredible doula we worked with named Patty that spent so much time, you know, A, teaching both of us everything that's going to happen physically and how

to prepare and the whole system. But it was so much about mental prep for her and seeing her, teaching her the headspace that she needs to get into. And I underestimated how powerful that was and is. And even with the second birth, my wife had a completely different experience. And she was able to harness those tools in an even more powerful way. And so yeah, I'm happy to talk more about this at length. It's really been so eye-opening the last couple of years.

Yeah, that's really special. And every time I hear someone talk about kids or pregnancy, I like have a million questions because I'm just so ready for that phase of my life. But it really is so much about mindset, especially when trying to get pregnant. If you obsess over it, that's when it doesn't end up happening. So that's something I'm learning.

I'm curious from your role at Sweetgreen, do you interact with the people that you're sourcing from and what has that experience been like trying to find the right ingredients? It's been really fun to be so close to the supply chain at Sweetgreen and get to know some of these farmers and growers. And we have an incredible supply chain team that spends time really building out this network of growers and thinking about all the inputs. And for us, whether it's this focus on organic greens and regenerative sourcing, it takes a lot of work with the right growers to also think about the supply years out. But visiting a farm and learning about their business is also fascinating because people often talk about how hard food can be

and being in the restaurant business. Being a farmer or grower is even harder. And so for us, as we've built that network and that relationship at Sweetgreen, it's always been imperative for us to be a kind of partner that can help their business and make sure that it works for their business. Because ultimately, if we want to grow Sweetgreen

to be as big as we want it to be, we need to also make sure that there is, on you know, on the other side of the table, a supply of these ingredients that can flourish and thrive and their business can actually work and grow as ours grows. I'm sure, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're probably some of these farmers' biggest client. Like you're probably the reason that they're doing the whole thing, right? You know, we actually work because we work with so many different regions

and we're at a scale, we actually work with smaller, medium, but also really large, organic and incredible growers. And that's very intentional to build this network of different size growers in different regions. Part of that is for resiliency, part of that is for regionality. And so we work with some of the largest growers in the country. And that's, for us, really important. Because if we want to create any sort of change, it's also important

for us to be thinking about the whole scale in our supply chain and just working with different growers. And ultimately, again, 230 restaurants is pretty small. But as we start getting to different levels of scale, it allows us more power to say, hey, this is how we want things to be grown or this is the spec that we want to be grown. And can you partner with us on that for the next couple of years? So even thinking about, you know, organic growers and transitioning land, it's been a conversation we've been having. Can growers transition their land from conventional to organic? And ultimately, you know, we've thought and spent a lot of time talking about soil health. Because when you think about, you know, majority of all foods we touch

are either grown or connected to the soil, grown in soil or connected to soil in some way, whether it's animals raised on soil. And so soil health is the beginnings of all things, nutrient density, even down to gut health and flavor. And so soil health is really important when we think about how we're sourcing and what we're sourcing. So important. And I don't think it's spoken about enough. There's not a lot of understanding around it. And it's really impressive that you guys are concerned with that um and really interesting to hear about honestly and i feel like just from my perspective with our greens and the inventory and getting all the ingredients for the greens i'm like how do you manage that

with fresh food like i can't even picture it and one thing i love about sweet green is every time i go in I can see everything happening. All the ingredients look amazing. Like I really feel like you guys have it down to such a great science and I can't even imagine on the back end what that looks like. Well, you know, I have a lot of love and gratitude for all of our team members every day. We have 6,000 team members that show up in our restaurants every day and bring this food to life. And, you know, we're doing real scratch cooking in the restaurant. They are roasting the meats, cutting the veg, cleaning it. It's real kitchens. And so it is work and it's

really exciting to see the pride the team members have in it. And one of my favorite things I see often is when we have a new team member start, they get a shift meal. They get to eat the product for free during the day. And to see some of them just completely connect with this food and almost have this epiphany of accidentally, like I started eating this food every day because I get it. And a month later, they're like, whoa, I feel so different. And there's this like accidental connection to food and rediscovery of their relationship with food that is really exciting. And I think it creates even more pride for them and what they get to build every day for our customers. 100%. They probably feel better, look better. That's incredible.

What is coming up for Sweetgreen? Is there any tea you can spill? Any tea I can spill? You know, just continued focus on protein and protein plates. I think really excited about, you know, you'd mentioned the hot honey chicken and the miso salmon. Those are things that are still pretty new for us. And just seeing the excitement around them is really great. So we're just doubling down on those things. And then we've got some exciting launches this summer. Some stuff that's returning from years before.

And then also just continuing to open new Sweet Greens and new communities. Our growth is really exciting. Every time we open in a new neighborhood, we create this access point for customers and get to connect with a whole different community. So that's really exciting for us. And yeah, just growing very thoughtfully, community by community. Beautiful. I mean, I'm hoping to see it at an airport. That would be my dream. Coming soon. I am dreaming of the day where I can get my sweet green in an airport and

not have to bring it myself. What do you think in LAX first? JFK? You know, airport operations, it's a whole different operation. But hopefully one day it'll be everywhere. Or served on JetBlue. That would be cool. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, well, now it's time for the question we ask every guest. I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? Wellness to me means having a very strong connection with your food and ultimately

having a really clear mind at the end of the day. Love it. Simple, clean, perfect answer. I was going to say, where can everyone find you online? I don't know if you want people to find you online. Where can they check out Sweetgreen so Sweetgreen is just at Sweetgreen on every channel TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, all the places and then for myself it's the same thing Nicholas Jemay on all channels amazing thank you Nicholas that was awesome

thanks for having me thanks for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast to support this show please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter

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next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider- patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.