Sweetgreen executives had hoped that 2026 would be the year business stabilized, after same-store sales decreased roughly 8% between 2024 and 2025. But first, it may have to coax some anxious consumers, who are avoiding salad and fresh produce over cyclospora concerns, to revisit their local Sweetgreens.
To be clear: Sweetgreen hasn’t been implicated in any cyclospora outbreaks, which have sickened thousands of people across 15 states. “The cyclospora has been attributed to iceberg lettuce, which we do not carry,” co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Thursday.
But the cyclospora outbreak has made some consumers more concerned about consuming fresh produce, given that the parasite alone cannot be reliably removed by washing produce. And it makes Sweetgreen’s goal of introducing itself to new customers and returning its existing stores to same-store growth that much more difficult.
“Beginning in mid-July, heightened consumer concern related to the recent cyclospora headlines” impacted Sweetgreen’s July comparable sales by about 600 basis points, CFO Jamie McConnell said during Thursday’s earnings call.
Sweetgreen’s total sales for the second quarter came in at $192.7 million, up 3.8% year over year. However, much of the company’s growth was driven by new restaurant openings. Same-store sales were down 6.2% year over year.
