Sweetgreen lovers , something wicked this way comes. And by wicked, of course, we mean wickedly delicious new ingredients and salads.
Jane Fryer , manager of Penn’s location for over a year, walked us through the many recent changes at Sweetgreen.
First up? New ingredients. They’ve switched from alfalfa to bean sprouts, and added roasted curry cauliflower, roasted Brussels sprouts and roast turkey. “We get our turkey locally from Common Market, a local farm provider. Oh, and we’re doing hummus now! That’s a huge one.”
New menu items include an apple, pear and cheddar trio, a roasted turkey and roasted vegetables medley and a butternut squash soup. According to Fryer, the most popular choices these days are apple and cheddar or turkey and roasted vegetables.
The new wave of inspiration has largely come from some corporate change–ups. While Sweetgreen continues to operate under its three original owners, a CEO, a director of operations and a new culinary team have entered into the mix. Fryer explains that Sweetgreen’s culinary director, Michael Stebner, “took a look at all our recipes and improved our offerings to be more nutrition oriented. We’re using grape seed oil instead of blended oil, more nutritious ingredients.”
Though not earthshaking, the wave of shake–ups appears to be moving Sweetgreen offerings towards improvement and innovation. But now, a moment of silence for those that didn’t quite make the cut. Last month, Sweetgreen devotees were shocked to learn that Penn’s location would no longer carry frozen yogurt. Explains Fryer, “As a company, we want to focus on what we do best, which is salads. We want to perfect that element. For now, we want to focus on seasonality, salads and getting people to change the way they eat and live.”
However, new menu options are always in consideration. “It’s always a possibility,” elaborates Fryer. “One thing with Sweetgreen is it doesn’t matter what we’re serving, it matters how we’re serving it. It’s about the brand, not about the product. People want their frozen yogurt and smoothies, so we might end up doing that. We want to elevate what we have and evolve into what the community needs.”
So next time you’re at Sweetgreen try the newbies for yourself, and dream of the day of Sweetgreen smoothies.
