Sweet Frog facts for kids
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| Private | |
| Industry | Chain restaurant/Franchise |
| Founded | Richmond, Virginia (2009) |
| Founder | Derek Cha and Annah Kim |
| Headquarters | , |
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Number of locations
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350+ stores (2/2016) |
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Area served
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regional - East Coast, South, Mideast, Midwest, West Coast, Dominican Republic |
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Key people
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Kevin Spencer Garrett |
| Products | Frozen yogurt and Sweet Frog merchandise |
Sweet Frog (officially called sweetFrog - Premium Frozen Yogurt) is a popular chain of restaurants that sells frozen yogurt. Imagine a place where you can create your very own dessert! At Sweet Frog, you get to choose your favorite soft-serve frozen yogurt flavors and then add tons of different toppings.
The person who started Sweet Frog is named Derek Cha. He came to the United States from South Korea when he was 12 years old. He opened the very first Sweet Frog shop in Richmond, Virginia, in 2009. This was during a time when the economy in the U.S. was having a tough time. Derek Cha built Sweet Frog on Christian ideas. He says the "FROG" part of the name stands for "Fully Rely on God."
Sweet Frog restaurants are usually painted pink and green inside. A typical store has about seven or eight frozen yogurt machines. There are also bars filled with many different toppings. You can also find merchandise, like toys and clothes, featuring Sweet Frog's fun mascots, "Scoop" and "Cookie."
In the fall of 2018, Sweet Frog was bought by a company called MTY Food Group Inc.. This company is based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. At the time it was bought, Sweet Frog had 332 locations. Most of these locations were franchised, meaning other people owned and operated them under the Sweet Frog name.
How Sweet Frog Grew So Fast
Derek Cha started Sweet Frog with just one restaurant in 2009. In only four years, Sweet Frog had grown a lot! It had more than 215 stores across 25 states in the U.S. They also opened stores in other countries, like the Dominican Republic, the United Kingdom, and Egypt.
In its first three years of offering franchises, over 60 new Sweet Frog stores opened. By the spring of 2012, Sweet Frog had 100 stores. Derek Cha hoped to have 200 stores by the end of that year. An article from April 2013 reported that Sweet Frog already had 240 stores. This included stores owned by the company, licensed stores, and franchised ones. Just seven months before, in October 2012, they only had 130 stores. By 2020, Derek Cha said he wanted to have 1,000 Sweet Frog locations in the U.S. and 1,000 more around the world.
On April 17, 2012, a company called Boxwood Capital Partners, LLC, decided to invest money in Sweet Frog. This investment helped Sweet Frog pay for its plans to open more stores across the country and internationally. After this investment, James Patrick Galleher, who worked at Boxwood Capital Partners, became the Chief Executive Officer of Sweet Frog.
In 2014, Sweet Frog was recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies. It was listed at number 22 on the Inc. 500 list. The company had made $34.4 million in revenue that year.
On February 2, 2015, Boxwood Capital Partners, LLC, announced that they had fully bought Sweet Frog Enterprises, LLC.
The table below shows how Sweet Frog grew each year:
| Year | Stores Opened This Year | Total Stores at Year End |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 1 | 1 |
| 2010 | 1 | 2 |
| 2011 | 8 | 10 |
| 2012 | 70 | 80 |
| 2013 | 107 | 187 |
| 2014 | 85 | 272 |
| 2015 | -23 | 249 |
| 2016 | 27 | 276 |
Sweet Frog and Racing
On April 18, 2016, a racing team called BK Racing announced something exciting. Sweet Frog would be a sponsor for David Ragan and his No. 23 Toyota Camry race car. This sponsorship was for the Toyota Owners 400 race at Richmond International Raceway. Sweet Frog also sponsored Ragan's car again for another race in Richmond in August, called the Federated Auto Parts 400. Later, you could even see Sweet Frog in the video game NASCAR Heat Evolution.
See also
- List of frozen yogurt companies
