Sweetgreen, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates fast food restaurants serving healthy food and beverages in the United States. It also accepts orders through its online and mobile ordering platforms, as well as sells gift cards that do not have an expiration date and can be redeemed. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
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Competitive advantage assessment
Key strengths
Operating Leverage in EffectOperating leverage is evident (score 0.93), with margins expanding over time.
Strong Liquidity BufferLiquidity position is strong (score 0.65), providing operational cushion.
Key risks
Commodity Pressure / Weak DifferentiationGross margin at 16.7th percentile with high volatility suggests weak pricing power or commoditized products.
ROIC Below WACC or PeersROIC at 11.1th percentile suggests inefficient capital deployment.
The dashed ring is the peer median. Defense scores are percentile ranks
against peers, so 50 is roughly the typical company in this group.
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Sweetgreen, Inc. ranks #45 of 57
scored companies in Restaurants by moat score — the top 79%.
The widest moat in the group is Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM)
at 83/100.
Moat scores for companies ranked near SG in Restaurants
Pricing power is the ability to raise prices without losing volume.
Cost Advantage
Score 19
· 15% of the moat score
A cost advantage means delivering the same product for structurally less — better purchasing, denser distribution, a more automated process.
Customer Stickiness
Score 23
· 15% of the moat score
Stickiness is what makes revenue repeat without being re-won every year.
Capital Efficiency
Score 17
· 18% of the moat score
Capital efficiency asks what the company earns on the money tied up in the business.
Resilience
Score 23
· 17% of the moat score
Resilience is the capacity to get through a bad year on its own terms — enough liquidity, enough interest cover, and enough cash generation to avoid a rescue financing or a forced sale.
Scale & Market Position
Score 45
· 15% of the moat score
Scale matters only when it converts into economics.
Sweetgreen, Inc. (SG) scores 22 out of 100 on the StatsAlpha Moat Map, which rates its competitive advantage as weak. It ranks #45 of 57 scored companies in Restaurants, the top 79%. The score is a weighted composite of 6 competitive defenses, each measured against industry peers of 56 companies in Restaurants. Its strongest defense is Scale & Market Position (45/100) and its weakest is Pricing Power (9/100).
How does Sweetgreen, Inc. compare with other Restaurants companies?
Sweetgreen, Inc. ranks #45 of 57 scored companies in Restaurants by moat score. The widest moat in Restaurants is Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM) at 83/100. The companies ranked closest are Venu Holding Corporation (VENU) at 22 just above it and Reborn Coffee, Inc. (REBN) at 22 just below it.
How is the moat score calculated?
Each company is scored with an industry-specific template — Corporate Default in this case, chosen because the defenses that matter to a bank are not the ones that matter to a software company. Every defense combines several financial signals, and each signal is measured as a percentile against a peer group of 56 companies in Restaurants. The defenses are then weighted to produce the overall score out of 100.
Why is Sweetgreen, Inc. scored with the Corporate Default template?
Most public companies sell a product or a service at a margin, so the moat question is whether that margin survives contact with competitors. The Corporate template scores the six defenses that show up in a general operating company's financial signature: whether it can hold price, produce more cheaply than rivals, keep its customers, earn a return above its cost of capital, withstand a downturn, and turn size into economics.
Which competitive defenses are measured for Sweetgreen, Inc.?
The Corporate Default template measures 6 defenses, and SG scores: Pricing Power (9), Cost Advantage (19), Customer Stickiness (23), Capital Efficiency (17), Resilience (23), Scale & Market Position (45). Each is scored independently as a percentile against peers, so a company can be strong on one and weak on another — the overall score reflects how those defenses are weighted for this industry.
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