Sweetgreen fights for the survival of farmers’ markets: ‘There isn’t a enterprise harder’ than farming

Sweetgreen tries to ensure the survival of farmers’ markets due to the very important function they play in the neighborhood and as an important supply of earnings for farmers.

Earlier this month, the quick meals chain, based in 2007 by Nicolas Jammet, Nathaniel Ru and Jonathan Neman, introduced its help for Meals Entry LA, a nonprofit group that oversees eight Los Angeles farmers’ markets which had been in peril of closing.

With the purpose of preserving them, Sweetgreen has dedicated to masking the working prices of the non-profit group till 2025, which can assist help small-scale agriculture and help entrepreneurs within the sector of meals and drinks whereas enhancing meals security in underserved neighborhoods.

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Staff put together apples and avocados at a Sweetgreen restaurant in Boston on October 24, 2017. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs / Getty Photographs)

Jammet, who serves as idea director, emphasised the significance of those markets, telling FOX Enterprise that, for many individuals, they’re usually the one locations the place contemporary meals is accessible. The markets, now financially supported by Sweetgreen, welcome greater than 10,000 guests every week to the Los Angeles space. A few of them featuring farmers on which Sweetgreen depends.

“Farmers markets have performed a vital function in how we now have constructed, developed and found our personal meals philosophy,” Jammet stated.

Within the firm’s early days, Jammet and his co-founders continuously visited the Dupont Circle Farmers Market in Washington, DC. It was there that they shaped direct relationships with native producers, which then “shaped the idea of Sweetgreen’s first menu,” Jammet stated.

Nicolas Jammet, co-founder of Sweetgreen Inc., speaks on the Milken Institute International Convention in Beverly Hills, California on April 30, 2018. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs / Getty Photographs)

The corporate nonetheless buys from the farmers it established relationships with 15 years in the past, Jammet stated.

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“Amid inflation, it can be crucial that customers and companies help small meals producers and markets,” he added.

A Sweetgreen restaurant in New York on April 22, 2024. (Angus Mordant/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs / Getty Photographs)

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Though he usually hears about how tough the restaurant business is, he says “it is a lot more durable to be a farmer.”

“There’s nothing harder. And their margins could be very tight, and lots of them reside from season to season,” Jammet stated. “Usually I believe farmers markets are the place farmers make most of their margin, as a result of they purchase and sell directly to customers. It’s subsequently a vital supply of earnings for a lot of farmers. »

Jennifer Grissom, govt director of Meals Entry LA, stated these markets permit “farmers to earn as much as 4 instances greater than they might at conventional grocery shops.”