The newly appointed CEO of San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. knows the hard work involved to get to the top in his professional and personal life.
John Morberg took over the top spot of Garden Fresh in August, and the first thing you see when you enter his office is a wall-sized, black and white photo taken while Morberg was in Nepal at an 18,500-foot base camp with Mount Everest looming in the background. Morberg loves Nepal and has traveled there six times, not just for the challenge of the trek but to visit a boy and the school he has personally sponsored since the boy was 7.
“Ten years ago I went over there to volunteer as a nonmedical worker for orphaned kids in a dental clinic,” Morberg said. “I came to really like the people — especially the kids — and have traveled extensively throughout the country.”
Morberg has been with Garden Fresh for seven years. A California native, Morberg earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting at University of San Diego and his law degree at University of the Pacific. He was vice president and controller for Petco Animal Supplies Inc. for eight years and was a key player in the naming rights for Petco Park. He then joined Direct Electronics Inc., or DEI Inc., as CFO and general counsel and took the company public eight years ago.
Morberg clearly is energized by the opportunity to grow Garden Fresh. Its mission from when the first store opened in 1978 has been to provide fresh food, prepared on-site, with the best ingredients available, just as you would at home.
Garden Fresh operates 128 restaurants in 15 states under two brand names, Souplantation in Southern California and Sweet Tomatoes nationwide.
The company went public in 1994 and private again when Centre Partners Management LLC bought the company in 2004. Centre sold the company to Sun Capital Partners Inc., a private equity firm with offices in Boca Raton, Los Angeles and New York.
The push from consumers for healthful food choices and more transparency about the ingredients is dramatically changing the face of fast casual and restaurant dining.
Morberg has taken note when other companies have campaigns to announce that they are taking this unpronounceable ingredient out or this 26-letter additive out, or have stopped using dangerous preservatives.
“We don’t have to do that, we’ve always been fresh, we’ve never had those ingredients in our food in the first place,” he said.
Debt Restructuring
The company announced a debt restructuring in November 2013 with its equity partner Sun Capital, which retired existing debt and included more than $135 million of new capital funding for growth.
One of the strategies for growth is to let consumers know the lengths that Garden Fresh goes to and has always gone to for its ingredients.
The ambience of the restaurant is being refreshed. Upon entering, a long farmer’s table is loaded with baskets of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices. The aroma of the food being cooked on-site and in some areas right in front of the diner wafts through the restaurant. The tableware and the trays are upgraded, the food is displayed in spotless containers and employees check the buffet constantly.
Morberg reflects on how much things have changed since the first Souplantation opened. In 1978, everyone cooked, and when they went out, no one wanted to see people cooking, “they wanted to get away from that.”
He said now no one cooks and with the entry of chains like Panera Bread, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Subway and others, people like to see people cooking or preparing food for them.
Souplantation launched a new concept in Bressi Ranch in Carlsbad to meet the need of time-strapped consumers who want a place to go and get a quick, fresh salad with a choice of protein assembled to their specifications. Morberg said this strategy was a “swing and a miss;” because of Souplantation’s brand awareness, customers aren’t expecting this format when they walk in the door.
‘The Farm Teams’
One of the strategies for the existing stores is “Discover Fresh.” The company has information about its farmers at every table in every store. Some of these famers have been suppliers to Souplantation for decades, which allows the company to work directly with each farmer to produce and deliver the best product possible.
For example, retired rocket scientist, Bob Crouch, really liked mushrooms, so as the placard at each table describes, he bought a mushroom farm in Escondido and went to work. He grew the farm from a 200 pound a week farm to 125,000 pounds per week and brought his son into the business. Growing mushrooms is not an easy crop; the soil has to be perfect and the crop needs to be picked at a precise time.
Broccoli Bob
Then there is “Broccoli Bob,” so-named by Morberg and now Broccoli Bob even refers to himself by that name. His family knows him as Bob Campbell. The card at the table describes how intricate the process is to get fresh, crisp broccoli to Souplantations stores each day. This broccoli is the basis for Joan’s Broccoli Madness sold at CostCo which has a cult following from fans who rave about it. As Morberg describes, the ultimate goal of any food product or offering is “craveable.”
Then there’s the leek and onion farmers, the tomato farmers — the list is huge. The local produce arrives at Souplantation kitchens, where everything is made from scratch, every day.
Really, they do make everything from scratch. If the blueberry muffins are not taken within 20 minutes of being baked, they are pulled from the display and replaced with warm, fresh muffins.
No detail seems too small in Morberg’s quest to grow one of San Diego’s oldest and most recognizable restaurant brands.
His trek to the summit of Mount Everest is still ahead.