Are you passionate about building a better food system? We’re in the business of feeding people, and we’re out to change what that means. Our food + beverage team builds relationships with growers, builds our menus based on what they’re growing, and ensures the daily deliveries are happening every day so our teams can cook all the food from scratch.
The Value Chain Coordinator will have four main responsibilities:
- Manage the Direct Relationships with our Growers in our Western Regions
- Assess Growers by Using our Food & Grower Ethos to Improve the Supply Chain
- Build a Comprehensive Seasonality-Based Model of Product Availability
- Crop Plan with Growers to Ensure Future Supply
How to Build our Supply Network
Manage the Direct Relationships with our Growers along the West Coast
- Become the main point of contact with regional small to midsize produce growers and food producers
- Build new relationships with growers and figure out how sweetgreen can best support them beyond purchases
- Estimate FOB & freight costs to distribution centers by ingredient
- Support any food safety related issues connected to our growers/producers
- Understand local regulations that affect farmers
- Fight for regional growers in your region that you believe in!
Assess Growers by Using our Ethos Continuously to Improve the Supply Chain
- Assess new growers using the Grower Ethos rating system
- Support the migration of our current grower base to implement better sustainability practices
- Onboard new growers who improve our Grower Ethos scoring
- Align sweetgreen with the appropriate certifications
Build a Comprehensive Seasonality-Based Model of Product Availability
- By region, provide the Food Team with usable produce items in the necessary volume
- Identify potential growers who are food safe certified and have an established track record in wholesale
Crop Plan with Growers to Ensure Future Supply
- Confirm long-term ingredients with the Culinary team based on a dynamic regional produce availability list
- Negotiate the specifications of the desired vegetable with the farmer
- Translate sales forecasts into appropriate seed counts
- Track the vegetable from planting to harvest to delivery into distribution centers, using sensor and traceability technology
- Aggregate ingredients by region when necessary
Desired Experience
- Familiarity and experience working with West Coast growing regions, farmers and producers
- Experience working on a polycrop vegetable farm, or for a regional aggregator of local food products
- Bachelor’s degree with technical background in Environmental Health, Food Science, Agriculture, or Supply Chain related course of study or equivalent experience
- Experience moving perishable product through distribution channels
- Familiarity with food-related certifications and the requirements for a grower to achieve various certifications
- General knowledge of manufacturing and agricultural practices
Desired Traits
- Desire to build an unparalleled food supply chain that supports farmers, sweetgreen, and our customers
- Ability to successfully handle many projects at once
- Excellent communication skills, ability to communicate clearly across multiple channels and supply chain partners
- Proficient time management, task management, and project prioritization skills
- Create win/win/win scenarios across the supply chain by tracking and organizing all of the information required to drive success
- Place the team’s success before individual accolades
- Ability to connect with farmers, growers, and producers of all types
- Become a steward of the soil
What you’ll get:
- Competitive pay + bonus plan granted based on performance
- Health, dental + vision insurance
- Flexible PTO, because we respect the need for work/life harmony
- An opportunity to make a real impact on the people around you, both by growing them and by connecting them to real food
- To live the sweetlife and celebrate your passion + purpose
- A collaborative family of people who live our core values and have your back
- A clear career path with opportunities for development, both personally and professionally
- Our annual Impact Retreat offsite
- Free sweetgreen swag
- Complimentary sweetgreen
Come join the sweetlife!
sweetgreen provides equal opportunities for everyone that works for us and everyone that applies to join our team, without regard to sex or gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, any service, past, present, or future, in the uniformed services of the United States (military or veteran status), or any other consideration protected by federal, state, or local law.
