Will Sweetgreen Fries Be A Success, Or Join The List Of Food Failures?

Extending your brand sometimes means you get burned

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Last week, a sidewalk sign caught my eye and I decided to investigate.

Sweetgreen Hopes You Will Want Fries With That

My friend Marc Stewart, the Beijing correspondent for CNN, was the first person I knew who was a big fan of Sweetgreen. He eats very healthy and is dedicated to his regular workouts and marathon runs.

So, when Sweetgreen came to Ann Arbor, as part of a push to expand nationwide, I was primed to investigate the menu. Sweetgreen was founded as a single shop in Washington, D.C. and is now on a march to 1,000 stores.

I find it to be a little pricey — you can easily spent $20 by customizing one of its salads and adding a side — but the food seems to be fresh and there are choices of proteins, greens and grains. Occasionally, they’ll send me a $5 off coupon and I’ll run over to pick up a plate.

Ten days ago, I was on the way to my hair salon when I passed a Sweetgreen in the same shopping plaza and saw a placard out front. To my surprise, it was advertising fries — ripple fries, to be exact, the kind with ridges (as opposed to waffle fries, which have holes).

The fries are made from russet potatoes, air fried with trendy avocado oil, then seasoned with a mix of salt and herbs. Customers can choose one of two sauces - Garlic Aioli and Pickle Ketchup. An order costs $4.95.

Sweetgreen tested the fries in Los Angeles and then rolled them out nationally. According to a press release, the move is part of Sweetgreen’s effort to “redefine fast food” with cleaner ingredients.

“Creating the perfect French fry is both an art and a science,” Chef Chad Brauze, Head of Culinary at Sweetgreen, said in the statement. “We know people love crispy, flavorful fries, so we set out to craft the best un-fried version possible. Ripple Fries deliver the perfect balance of crunch and flavor—great for dipping, snacking, or pairing with any Sweetgreen order.”

Reviving an old message

When I saw the sign for fries, I immediately thought of my long ago marketing class in undergrad. “A brand is a promise that you make to the consumer,” our professor drilled into us.

In the case of Sweetgreen, I thought I had a clear picture of what the brand stood for: a fast casual (sorry, their menu is too expensive to be considered fast food) chain that provides fresh and healthy ingredients.

To me, Sweetgreen is what Panera could be if it had not gone downhill, but it is not a competitor for McDonald’s or even Shake Shack, which is why the fries strike me as incongruous.

There are so many fry choices, after all. I can walk across the same strip mall as Sweetgreen to a Shack, where its bountiful fries cost $4.49 a serving. Or, I could use the McDonald’s app and head a block east on Washtenaw Avenue, where I might score a small order for $1.

The second thing I thought of when I spotted the fries was that Sweetgreen was playing into the behavior of generations of young women. They order a salad and add an order of fries, justifying the treat because the rest of the meal is lighter in calories. I definitely ate that way in my early career days, until I figured out the benefits of a more balanced approach.

It struck me that a new generation is subliminally going to hear the message we girls heard: skimp on your main course, and then you’re allowed to have something you really want to eat.

The risk of straying too far

In a typical, non-Covid year, brands introduce as many as 20,000 new menu items a year, and they are not all going to make it.

Back in 1991, as health advocates began to note the dangers of fast food, McDonald’s introduced the McLean Deluxe, a burger it claimed was lower in fat. One reason was that it replaced 10% of the meat with carrageans, a chemical derived from seaweed. We tried it once and like many other customers, did not get it again. It disappeared in five years.

Since then, McDonald’s has tried many times to offer salads. You can still find them at a few outlets — one of ours offers two different types — but for the most part, many McDonald’s franchises began discontinuing them around a decade ago.

Of course, McD’s is far from alone in food fails. The aptly named website Food Dive says some of the biggest food failures were New Coke (1985), Life Savers soda (1982), Colgate Lasagne (1980) and green ketchup from Heinz (2000).

It’s one thing for consumer products companies to slip in an innovation here and there, which these Sweetgreen fries may be, but another for a restaurant to head in an entirely new direction.

I’d be wary if Sweetgreen starts rolling out more versions of “healthy” fried food, whether it’s cauliflower or chicken nuggets or candy bars. I don’t go to Sweetgreen for that. I go to them knowing that the food will be similar to what I’d make at home when I have fresh ingredients.

Please weigh in, and let me know if these fries are something you’d get, with or without a salad.

The Great Japanese Matcha Shortage

A few weeks ago, I told you about Ito En’s big push into the U.S. market, with help from Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani. Now, there are some worries that Japan is facing a shortage of matcha, or green tea.

According to this analysis, there are several factors involved. One is a spike in global demand. You can find matcha lattes and matcha flavored food in almost every big city and college town, not just in Japan but worldwide. That has put a strain on tea growers, many of whom operate from small farms.

Second, climate change is taking a toll on tea production, with severe storms, unpredictable temperatures and high winds that disrupt growing the delicate crop. Third, Japan’s aging population and a disinterest by young people in traditional farming mean that the workforce available to process matcha is evaporating.

You can probably expect to see matcha price hikes and maybe even some shortages as a result.

Inside The Target Fast

If you are active on social media, you’ve probably seen mentions of a boycott of Target. It’s being called the Target Fast, and it began on Ash Wednesday.

Proponents are asking customers to skip shopping at Target throughout Lent, because it has ended some of its programs for diversity, equity and inclusion. A website for participants described the boycott as “a spiritual act of resistance.”

According to the Associated Press, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta, organized the “Target Fast” along with other faith and civil rights leaders.

I will be watching to see if the fast has any impact on Target’s food and beverage business. In its fiscal 2024, Target grocery sales were 22.5% of its business, or around $23.8 billion. That was down slightly from $23.9 billion in 2023.

Target made a big push into groceries during the past few years. Its annual food and beverage sales have climbed $8 billion from 2019. One selling point is that consumers can simply pull up to many Target stores and have groceries brought out to their cars, saving valuable shopping time.

Target has declined direct comment on the boycott, but that’s one of many financial pressures it faces, along with potentially high costs due to tariffs on goods from China, Canada and Mexico.

Mr. Softee Goes Brick And Mortar

If you’ve lived in the New York City area, you probably can hum the Mr. Softee jingle by heart. (Did you know there are lyrics?)

The blue and white ice cream trucks, known for soft serve, began in 1956 by William and James Conway, and are still run by the same family.

But after nearly 70 years of roaming area streets, Mr. Softee is settling down. Eater New York reports that there are now two Mr. Softee store fronts in the suburbs, one in Yorktown Heights in Westchester County, the other in East Islip on Long Island.

The shops’ lineups go beyond the vanilla and chocolate found on the trucks. The Long Island store has pistachio and strawberry, as well as scooped ice cream and even waffle cones.

At its peak, Mr. Softee had 2,000 trucks roaming in 38 states. It now has 625 trucks in 18 states, and you can track their location on an app.

Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman

I was delighted to be interviewed by Michigan Public’s The Dish podcast about paczki. I especially enjoyed hearing Mercedes Mejia interview the owner of New Palace Bakery in Hamtramck, which is Paczki Headquarters for Southeast Michigan.

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Tomorrow, in Red Beans & Advice for paid subscribers, I’m looking at my favorite new Netflix series, which unites a pair of Japanese and Korean food lovers.

Please go easy as you adjust to the time change, and have a good week.