Sweetgreen is selling its automated kitchen technology to Wonder for $186.4 million

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Sweetgreen — the Los Angeles-based fast-casual salad chain — announced its intention to sell Spyce to digital delivery and virtual food hall company, Wonder for $186.4 million. 

Sweetgreen first acquired Spyce, the company behind the automated Infinite Kitchen technology, in 2021 for $70 million. The robotic technology, which features automated preparation and distribution of salad bowls, is currently in place at 20 Sweetgreen locations (just over 7% of its portfolio) nationally. 

“We’re incredibly proud of the work our team and the Spyce team have done to develop, scale, and monetize one of the world’s most advanced robotic food technologies,” Jonathan Neman, cofounder and CEO of Sweetgreen, said in a statement. “We remain deeply confident in both the Infinite Kitchen’s future impact and the brilliant team behind it.”

Shortly after acquiring Spyce, Sweetgreen had promised all of its stores would become fully automated, but last year, the company began backing away from that claim. In September 2024, Sweetgreen CFO Mitch Reback said the technology would now be used at half of its stores moving forward. 

With the upcoming sale, Sweetgreen will receive $100 million in cash and $86.4 million in Wonder company stock. Under the acquisition agreement, Sweetgreen will still be able to deploy Infinite Kitchen technology across its restaurants, “with even greater flexibility.”

As part of the agreement, 38 Spyce employees, including its cofounders, engineers, and support staff, will now report to Wonder.

“As we evolve from a first-of-its-kind, multi-restaurant operator into a truly scalable, technology-powered food platform, the acquisition of Spyce’s Infinite Kitchen gives us leading robotics capabilities that will transform how food is prepared and served,” Wonder founder and CEO, Marc Lore, said in a statement. “This technology enables us to eventually operate more than 100 restaurants across any cuisine type and price point, all out of a small kitchen, while serving food faster, hotter and with flawless accuracy and consistency.”

This acquisition deal was announced ahead of Sweetgreen’s third-quarter earnings on Thursday. 

Sweetgreen operates 270 locations across the United States.

Contact Joanna at [email protected]

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