SWEETGREEN
An original content series for sweetgreen created to deliver on sweetgreen’s mission of transparency in food sourcing. We brought stories from the source to media across stores, email and social with our signature mix of engaging visuals, repeatable recognizable formats, education and entertainment.
Open Source
For eight months worked closely with sweetgreen’s peerless sourcing team to create coverage of ingredients in the exact season they were made or harvested, with the goal to document the origin of each ingredient on the seasonal 365 per year menu.
CONCEPT
CONTENT STRATEGY
CREATIVE, ART, VIDEO DIRECTION
PRODUCTION
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Brussel Sprouts
Plainview Farms
Joe Czajkowski, the New England king of Brussels, is a third generation farmer with a one-of-a-kind, sprout-and-stalk separating machine from the Netherlands. He runs a year-round farm that allows his team and their families to settle down and plant roots in the community.
Brussels ripen from the bottom of the stalk upward. But before they grow into stalks, they’re planted inside a greenhouse for safe keeping. Once the seed has sprouted a few inches in height, it’s transplanted to the field for the rest of it’s growth cycle.
Plainview, Massachusetts
Burrata
Di Stefano Cheese
Di Stefano is an artisan cheese plant helmed by Mimmo Bruno and his son Stefano. Credited with bringing Burrata to the US (bow down), Mimmo knows the best cheese begins with the freshest milk. “We know exactly what the cows are eating, what they’re being fed, and how they’re being treated.”
Derived from “burro,” the Italian word for butter, burrata is beloved for its creamy, soft center. It’s made with a solid, fresh mozzarella outer layer and filled with a mixture of cream and stringy curds of mozzarella. Sweet dreams are made of cheese.
Los Angeles, CAB
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Chickpeas
Timeless Seeds
Did you know that you can get 18% of your daily protein intake from just 100g of chickpeas? Did you also know that to get the best chickpeas in America you have to travel all the way up to Ulm, Montana where Timeless Seeds, a farming movement pioneered by rebel seedsman Dave Oien, is headquartered. This group of renegade growers rejected commodity industrial wheat farming in the 1980s and traded pesticides and synthetic nitrogen for crop rotation and soil health. sweetgreen loves chickpeas because they are a type of plant—known as legumes—which are both good for you (hi, protein) and good for the planet.
How? These legumes (which also include lentils and peas) have bacteria on their roots that convert nitrogen into ammonia—the chemical used in fertilizers. Essentially they take fertilizer from the air and put it into the ground. Which means these they produce their own fertilizer for healthier soil and better tasting food. Pretty cool, right?
Ulm, Montana
Cranberries
Bluewater Farms
Bluewater Farms is a vertically integrated farming operation growing cranberries on Cape Cod for three generations. These vitamin-rich berries grow on long vines and are harvest in marshy ground known as bogs, flooded on the eve of harvest. Hope floats and so do crans, thanks to tiny air pockets. Once at the surface they are corralled, collected, washed, and entered into a great debate, dried or jellied?
West Warham, MAC
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Ginger
Whiskey Hill Farms
When David Blume told us he was farming in a way that was “beyond sustainable,” he had our attention. When we tasted his fresh ginger, we figured out how to get to Watsonville, CA ASAP.
David is a ginger guru and soil enthusiast who leads the charge at Whiskey Hill Farms in Watsonville, CA. As a studied ecologist, he’s an expert on the relationship between organisms and their environments. He’s created diverse ecosystems by polycropping (aka planting multiple crops together) to mimic the reality of nature and ultimately benefit the soil.
All in a formerly defunct 14 acre greenhouse that now farm mimics the environment of the tropics and allows him to grow turmeric, sugar cane, and of special interest to sweetgreen—young ginger, which they use in dressings and house-made frescas. Sweetgreen loved young ginger for its many health benefits. We love it for this story of true transparency and David’s relentless spirit of innovation.
Watsonville, CA
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Kale
Pedersen Farms
sweetgreen sourced nearly two million pounds of kale in 2018 (that's a lot of kale caesars). And a lot of that came from Pedersen farms in upstate New York. Family-owned in the Finger Lakes region, Pedersen Farms is our largest east coast kale supplier.
On over 600 acres of organic land, head farmer Rick is a true soil man who believes healthy soil is the key to productive yields and epic flavor (#BigDirtEnergy). A Cornell Ag school graduate, Rick Pedersen is a true soil farmer who believes growing healthy soil is the key to productive yields and great flavor. Why does sweetgreen love kale so much? Kale is packed with phytonutrient molecules making it a superfood that can help battle obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. It’s a proven power plant, yet the average American eats only 2 to 3 cups a year (your Kale Caesar has ⅓ a cup!).
Seneca Falls, NY
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Mesclun
Jayleaf Farms
This is a silicon valley story we can get behind. Two best friends and college bandmates decide to go back to their roots and turn a family farm into a world-class organic lettuce growing operation.
(Salad) rock stars.
José Ornelas and Henry Catalan run Jayleaf out of Hollister, CA. Their farm is nearly 100% solar-powered and capable of producing 6,000 - 10,000 units a day. In 2018 alone they proved over 600,000 pounds of leafy greens to sweetgreen.
Hollister, CA
