Fresh, Local, Direct: Inside Sweetgreen's Seasonal Sourcing

‍Staying true to their roots

Since day one, Sweetgreen has built its brand around one simple idea: serve fresh, healthy, seasonal food sourced directly from the family farm. Even as Sweetgreen has grown to 200+ locations in over 20 states, that commitment hasn’t changed. 

For many restaurants at their scale, the path is predictable: consolidate purchasing through broadline distributors, standardize ingredients, and optimize for simplicity. But Sweetgreen is bucking the trend. They continue to build direct relationships with farmers and shape their supply chain around those relationships. That choice, however, comes with real operational complexity. 

The hard part: scaling local without losing control

As restaurant brands grow, sourcing gets harder, not easier! Embracing direct-from-farm sourcing at scale requires the right team, systems, and infrastructure. Finding the right suppliers isn’t just about quality anymore, it’s also about:

1. Sufficient volumes to support multi-state demand.
2. Reliable logistics and delivery infrastructure. 
3. Strong food safety and traceability systems. 
4. Competitive pricing that works alongside national supply programs. 

And perhaps most importantly, it takes a lot of time. Time to research farms, vet suppliers, map the supply chain, collect documentation, and onboard new partners. For a fast growing brand like Sweetgreen, doing this manually across their 20+ markets doesn’t scale well. That’s where Local Line comes in! 

The search for the perfect cauliflower

Each season, Sweetgreen introduces a select number of new seasonally inspired menu items. In the summer of 2025, it was time to begin sourcing ingredients for the upcoming fall menu. Cauliflower was at the center of it. They needed a west coast farm that could deliver: 

1. Consistent, high-quality cauliflower at scale. 
2. Proven experience supplying the foodservice industry.
3. Established food safety practices. 
4. Alignment with their values around sustainability and regenerative farming. 

Instead of spending weeks sourcing and vetting farms, Sweetgreen turned to Local Line. 

Connecting with the right farm, instantly

Based on Sweetgreen’s criteria, Local Line identified and introduced Freitas Brothers Farm, a 5th generation cauliflower grower based just outside Santa Maria, California. Freitas Brothers stood out immediately because of their generational expertise in cauliflower production, established relationships in foodservice, commitment to sustainable farming, and strong focus on food safety, quality, and freshness. 

They were the exact kind of farmer that Sweetgreen looks for, but this time it took them no time or effort to find them! Thanks to Local Line, the connection was immediate. 

Onboarding and execution without friction

Beyond the mere introduction, Local Line handled the heavy lifting that typically slows these partnerships down. Farmer onboarding was streamlined through digital intake forms, compliance and documentation were centralized and easy to manage, and billing and payments were simplified, with Local Line acting as the central transaction layer between the distribution centers and the farm. 

Instead of juggling spreadsheets, emails, and paperwork, Sweetgreen had a clean, centralized workflow. The result was a faster time to launch and fewer internal resources required. In the words of Kyle Wind, Strategic Sourcing Manager for Produce at Sweetgreen:

“Onboarding a new seasonal farm normally takes a lot of coordination; outreach, documentation, compliance, accounting. Local Line brought all of that into one place, which let me focus more on creating a successful fall menu launch.”

A partnership worth talking about

The partnership between Sweetgreen and Freitas Brothers was so successful that Sweetgreen decided to feature the Freitas family in their popular ‘Faces of the Farm’ video series, which highlights the people behind the ingredients and brings transparency to their sourcing model. 

Local Line helps Sweetgreen deliver what their brand promises: real food from real farmers. This partnership is proof that sourcing direct-from-farm can be a competitive advantage when done correctly. 

‍Scaling without compromise

Together, Sweetgreen and Local Line are demonstrating that with the right infrastructure, it’s possible to: 

1. Build and maintain direct farm relationships.
2. Source locally and seasonally at scale. 
3. Meet the operational demands of a national footprint.

Local Line gives Sweetgreen the confidence that as they continue to expand, they can stay true to the sourcing principles that made their customers fall in love with them from the beginning. 

“The common belief is that you have to choose between scale and sourcing with intention. We’ve proven that you can do both, and partnerships like the one we have with Local Line are important components of how we’ll continue to do it in the future,” says Jim Thomas, VP of Supply Chain and Sustainability at Sweetgreen. 

Looking ahead

What started with cauliflower in 2025 is just the beginning! As Sweetgreen continues its rise, Local Line will be there alongside them to identify and onboard new farms, provide access to critical on-farm data, and construct a supply chain that scales with them. Because great food doesn’t start in a distribution center. It starts at the farm.