Last year salad startup sweetgreen (undercase branding) announced their restaurants were going 100% seed oil free nationwide.
Sweetgreen goes seed oil free
In October 2023, Sweetgreen announced they were going seed oil free and switching to extra virgin olive oil. This apparently only applies to some of their cooked food, despite rather outsized claims like “completely removes.”
Foodbeast: Sweetgreen Switches To Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Completely Removes Seed Oils From Menu
Bloomberg: Why Salad Giant Sweetgreen Decided to Get Rid of Seed Oils
Sweetgreen goes back to seed oils
As of January 2024, sunflower oil was spotted on their ingredients list for most salad dressings.
S4 2023 Fleet Ingredients (PDF) https://assets.ctfassets.net/eum7w7yri3zr/7BQw9mqifre0xFKiwWyd41/b375f805dcd7efcdbbcfbc24c30258a5/S4_2023_NUTRITION_BINDER_-_FINAL.pdf
January 2024 Fleet Ingredients (PDF) https://assets.ctfassets.net/eum7w7yri3zr/7qzNkzyPBQBya7k1CdhWqg/ac5220475bc0b681adbdbf603bfb4c6f/JAN_2024_NUTRITION_BINDER_-12.21.23
Sunflower oil spotted
Twitter user spots gallons of sunflower oil on display at their local Sweetgreen location.
Sweetgreen co-founder announces more seed oil free items
January 7th, 2025: this tweet from a co-founder of Sweetgreen seems to indicate their move away from seed oils is still in progress. He clarified the seed oil free announcement of 2023 was referring to their cooked food items.
New year, same big mission. We started @sweetgreen to re-imagine fast food and the food system. In 2023, we were the first fast food national restaurant to remove seed oil as our cooking oil and introduced exclusively cooking in extra virgin olive Oil and avocado oil for our grains, vegetables and proteins.
…
This January, we’re excited to take it a step further with the launch of our first-ever seed oil-free menu. Featuring delicious, protein-packed options crafted entirely without seed oils, this lineup offers more transparency and choices for our guests. Whether it’s our approach to roasting or creating dressings from scratch, we’re redefining fast food to prioritize real ingredients that fuel your body and inspire a healthier food system—one flavorful bite at a time.
…
Pictured in this tweet is their Green Goddess Dressing, which was seed oil free in 2023. Their new seed oil free menu appears to be composed of five items made with the goddess dressing.
I guess they’re also beefing with the MAHA crowd, lmao. GMO Cultured Oil is not exactly a flex. I wonder if this novel oil is part of their greater plan.
