{"id":4674,"date":"2025-12-18T03:07:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4674"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:07:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:07:49","slug":"sweetgreen-co-founder-is-stepping-down-from-executive-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4674","title":{"rendered":"Sweetgreen co-founder is stepping down from executive role"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sweetgreen Inc. co-founder Nathaniel Ru is leaving the struggling salad chain following a string of disappointing results and a precipitous decline in the company\u2019s stock price.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Ru, who has served as chief brand officer and been with the company for 20 years, is planning to retire on Jan. 1, according to a statement. He will continue to serve on the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sweetgreen\u2019s share price has dropped nearly 80% since the start of 2025, while consumers have bristled at perceived high costs of the company\u2019s food. Fast-casual chains have also broadly struggled in recent quarters. Operational stumbles, such as removing fries only months after they were introduced, have contributed to the market losing faith in Sweetgreen\u2019s current management team.<\/p>\n

Ru, who started the company alongside current Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Neman and Chief Concept Officer Nicolas Jammet, has overseen the company\u2019s marketing and restaurant design. While Sweetgreen\u2019s concept has been touted as innovative in the restaurant world, that creativity has sometimes hindered efficient operations.<\/p>\n

The company has yet to turn a profit since going public in late 2021 and has amassed net losses totaling more than $500 million in the period. Despite this, the chain has continued to aggressively expand, with its store count growing 90% over the past four years.<\/p>\n

The growth hasn\u2019t led to better financial performance. Cava Group Inc., which sells Mediterranean-style bowls, has expanded more quickly than Sweetgreen while posting consistent quarterly profits.<\/p>\n

Prioritizing branding and restaurant development has led to higher operating costs and hasn\u2019t translated into increased foot traffic. Sales from existing restaurants has contracted three consecutive quarters, including a 9.4% drop most recently, the most since 2021. Analyst expect that trend to continue, and worsen, in the fourth period this year after the company warned weak traffic trends have continued.<\/p>\n

In August, Neman said only one-third of locations were \u201cconsistently operating at or above standard,\u201d while the remainder fell short on sourcing, cooking and uniformity.<\/p>\n

This year, the company sold off its kitchen automation unit to Wonder Group Inc., generating $100 million in cash. That technology was supposed to help get restaurant unit economics under control and speed up service but was sacrificed to help shore up company finances. Sweetgreen will maintain a licensing agreement to use the tool.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Ru\u00a0told the business journal\u00a0from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania that he and his partners started Sweetgreen with a single location in Washington DC. He said that the landlord initially hung up on him but eventually relented after months of pestering. He said the group came up with five business principles, including \u201cwin, win, win\u201d and \u201ckeeping it real.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2022, he\u00a0told Marketing Brew\u00a0that Sweetgreen seeks \u201cintimacy at scale\u201d as it expands while talking about the company\u2019s collaborations with tennis player Naomi Osaka and NBA player Devin Booker.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Sweetgreen #cofounder #stepping #executive #role<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweetgreen Inc. co-founder Nat… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[669,1085,1944,2371,4427,4426],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}