Financing

Can a salad chain become the next big thing in the restaurant business?

A Deeper Dive: Nancy Kruse, the new menu trends columnist for Restaurant Business, joins the podcast this week to discuss whether Sweetgreen can find enough salad demand to grow big.

Will people eat enough salads to fuel Sweetgreen’s potential growth?

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast “A Deeper Dive” features Nancy Kruse, RB’s new menu trends columnist. You can read her first piece, from Worlds of Flavor, right here.

Kruse is well known for her expertise on menu trends and other issues affecting the restaurant industry.

That makes her perfect for a topic such as this one: Whether there is enough demand for salads to fuel growth of a national salad chain, which is what Sweetgreen is trying to become. Investors are betting that it will, giving the company a valuation higher than many other more established chains several times its size.

To warrant that valuation, it will need plenty of demand for salads. But Kruse doesn’t think demand is its biggest challenge. She talks about what that challenge is, as well as the overall demand for healthful food.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on Spotify.

Also, we are now on Alexa. Simply go to this link here and be logged into your Amazon account; look for “A Deeper Dive podcast” to enable the skill. Once it’s enabled, all you need to do to listen is say, “Alexa, play A Deeper Dive.” You may also enable the daily short news podcast “RB Daily” by searching for the “RB Daily” podcast.

Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.

Multimedia

Exclusive Content

Emerging Brands

5 pre-emerging restaurant brands ready for takeoff

These small concepts are still proving out their ideas, but each shows promise as a potential candidate for the next generation of emerging chains.

Technology

This little-known iPhone feature could change restaurant ordering

Tech Check: Almost every customer has a POS in their pocket. Can mini mobile apps get them to actually use it?

Financing

Red Lobster gives private equity another black eye

The Bottom Line: The role a giant sale-leaseback had in the bankruptcy filing of the seafood chain has drawn more criticism of the investment firms' financial engineering. The criticism is well-earned.

Trending

More from our partners