With 91 restaurants in eight states and a network of 150 farmers nationwide, Sweetgreen has built a fast-casual farm-to-table empire that's about to expand into (at least) another 15 outposts this year. This is how the company has embraced innovation to expand its ethos:

CULT PRODUCTS

Sweetgreen has a history of collaborating with prominent chefs (David Chang, Nancy Silverton) on specialty dishes. Last November, she partnered with chef Dan Barber's Row 7 Seed Company to launch a salad using Robin's Koginut, a squash variety created by Barber's team. Sweetgreen worked with its farmers to plant the crop, then debuted the Koginut bowl with the hype of a sneaker drop and its own billboard in Times Square. When it comes to marketing, “we look beyond the world of food,” says co-founder and concept director Nicolas Jammet.

SMARTER DELIVERY

With more than half of its orders coming from its app (which more than a million people have downloaded), the company is finding ways to get food to customers more efficiently. Its new Outpost program offers free delivery to employees of participating companies: meals ordered in the morning are dropped off at set times at office buildings each afternoon. With 75 registered offices and 150 more in the pipeline, “Outpost could be as big or bigger than our restaurants one day,” says co-founder and chief brand officer Nathaniel Ru. The company is now working to integrate delivery services into its app.

A SECURE SUPPLY CHAIN

In 2017, the company began a pilot with blockchain startup Ripe.io to install sensors at one of Sweetgreen's farms in the Boston area to learn the best times to harvest and eat local cherry tomatoes. Sweetgreen expanded the partnership last year to examine how different variables affect the flavor profiles of other ingredients. The move lays the groundwork for Sweetgreen to use blockchain to track all of the company's ingredients from farm to restaurant; This could be implemented to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks as the company expands.

LESS EXPENSE

Sweetgreen ditched its rounded takeout bowl last summer for a compostable hexagonal one. The wider, shallower receptacles allow customers to mix their salads themselves, allowing restaurants to eliminate metal mixing bowls from their production lines. This keeps customers moving through stores faster and saves water (less dishwashing) and lost products. Sweetgreen estimates this adjustment saved more than half a million pounds of food waste last year alone.

Source: Farley (2019)

Apply the Business Canvas model for Sweet green and explain in detail the 9 components of the Business Canvas model

Highlight the change of model after testing it in the market. This is an assumption based on his thinking.