2024-07-16 01:21:06 ET
Summary
- Sweetgreen stock has surged this year on its plans to retrofit more of its restaurants with robotic automation.
- The company's automated "Infinite Kitchen" locations are demonstrating 10 points of operating margin advantage to non-automated peers, alongside higher average ticket prices.
- The company already enjoys a higher food margin relative to key peers, and Sweetgreen's same-store sales growth is trending higher than CAVA's.
- The company trades at a lower revenue multiple than both CAVA and Chipotle, despite having more advanced automation investments than both of these rivals.
Investors are very aware of the AI bubble this year, but there's one other sector that's getting a lot less attention but seeing significant market gains this year: fast-casual food chains. Industry titan Chipotle ( CMG ) is up nearly 30% this year after a massive 50-for-1 stock split; while new IPO CAVA ( CAVA ) has slightly more than doubled year-to-date as investors cheered the company's pace of store expansion with its considerable IPO funds....
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Sweetgreen: Bank On Automation And Health Food Trend