sweetgreen rewards App an Immediate Success

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - May 17, 2013) -  sweetgreen, the much-loved, organic, farm-to-table salad shops founded in Washington, D.C., is pleased to announce the successful results of its recently launched rewards app, developed and launched three months ago with mobile payment network LevelUp. In an effort to connect with and provide benefits to its guests and the community, the company reached out to LevelUp to develop a customized rewards app that provides guests with a fast and easy way to pay with their phones, unlock loyalty rewards and give back to local charities. Representing the first white-label app from LevelUp, sweetgreen rewards has been an immediate success, allowing guests to earn dollars that can be redeemed at any of sweetgreen's 17 locations and offers various perks that can be unlocked over time, including 1% of dollars spent donated to local charities that promote healthy eating in schools. sweetgreen rewards is perfectly aligned with the company's "win-win-win" philosophy -- to create solutions where the company wins, the customer wins and the community wins.

The results from just 10 weeks post-launch speak for themselves:

• Overtaking credit cards: sweetgreen rewards represents 18% of total transaction volume (and growing fast!), which ranks above MasterCard or American Express, and is head-to-head with cash. One out of every five guests has been using sweetgreen rewards.
• Speeding up lines: sweetgreen rewards is the fastest way to pay. The app is four seconds faster than credit cards and twenty seconds faster than cash, saving customers time at check-out.
• High consumer rankings: sweetgreen rewards is ranked 4.8 stars in the App Store and 4.7 stars in Google Play. At launch, the iPhone app was ranked 7th in the food and drink app category.
• Driving referrals: 12% of sweetgreen rewards users were referred by other sweetgreen rewards users.
• Giving back: 1% of every purchase goes to local charities dedicated to educating children about healthy eating.

"At sweetgreen, we are always looking for ways to connect with our guests, offer them the most outstanding experience in our stores and to give back to our communities -- our sweetgreen rewards app has enabled us to do this in countless ways," said Nathaniel Ru, sweetgreen CEO and co-founder. "Guests now have faster check-out times, rewards they can use at all sweetgreen locations, and the ability to give back to their community and local schools. It's been amazing to see one out of every five of our guests pay with the new app -- and that's just in the first three months of launching. We're excited to partner and continue to innovate with LevelUp on this new technology, and look forward to building additional features in the future."

sweetgreen created this highly customized rewards app using LevelUp's technology. As the first white-label app built on LevelUp's payment infrastructure, sweetgreen rewards looks and feels 100% pure sweetgreen, with everything on the back-end (including loyalty tracking, customer analytics, engagement tools and security) powered by LevelUp. The app integrates right into sweetgreen's existing POS, so checking out is easy for both guests and sweetgreen employees. 

"sweetgreen is a tech-savvy brand that understands the real value of LevelUp White-Label: the ability to take what customers think is awesome about your brand, and extend it through a mobile payment experience," said Seth Priebatsch, chief ninja at LevelUp. "With near five-star app store ratings and 18% of transactions coming from the app, it's pretty obvious sweetgreen guests love using an app with sweetgreen's core values baked right in."

Just check out sweetgreen's consumer feedback, as indicated in these tweets:

• "I'm totally diggin' the @sweetgreen rewards app. Earn rewards, pay with your phone, ditch the plastic in your wallet"
• "I'm generally obsessed with @sweetgreen, but their rewards program is, like, the coolest thing haha"
• "Of course @sweetgreen is ahead of the curve again with their new app and nice young man in store to promote it #welldone"

To download the sweetgreen rewards app, just search for "sweetgreen" in the App Store or Google Play.

To learn more about LevelUp White-Label, visit www.thelevelup.com/white-label, or email enterprise@thelevelup.com.

About sweetgreen
Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman and Nathaniel Ru are the founders of sweetgreen, the much-loved, organic, farm-to-table salad shops that now include 17 locations in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland and Philadelphia, with new locations opening in NYC and Boston this summer. The three former Georgetown University students opened their first sweetgreen, a 560-square foot space in Georgetown, in August 2007. With a commitment to local farmers, the community, sustainability, and using the best ingredients possible in an eco-friendly dining environment, the forward-thinking trio of entrepreneurs soon became the leader in local, organic, healthy fast food. In addition to salads, sweetgreen also offers seasonal soups, frozen yogurt and fresh pressed raw juice (sweetpress). sweetgreen produces the annual sweetlife festival, an unforgettable celebration of music and food that attracts a curated selection of cutting edge artists and 20,000 attendees -- not to mention outstanding food from top chefs, food trucks, local purveyors and farmers. For more information, visit www.sweetgreen.com.

About LevelUp
LevelUp is a revolutionary new way to pay. Users pay with their phone, saving time and money. Businesses pay 0% payment processing fees and re-invest those savings into growing their businesses by attracting new customers and bringing them back. LevelUp is a part of SCVNGR which is backed by Google Ventures, Balderton Capital, Continental Investors, Highland Capital, Transmedia Capital and T-Venture, the venture arm of Deutsche-Telekom.