Sweet Frog (stylized as sweetFrog - Premium Frozen Yogurt) is a chain of frozen yogurt retail restaurants owned and operated by Sweet Frog Enterprises, LLC. Sweet Frog customers create their own soft-serve frozen yogurt with numerous flavors and toppings from which to choose. Derek Cha, who immigrated to the United States from South Korea at the age of 12, is the founder of sweetFrog. He opened the first sweetFrog shop in Richmond, Virginia in 2009,[2][3] at a time when the United States economy was in a recession. Cha founded sweetFrog on Christian principles.[4][5] The "FROG" part of the name, according to Cha, is actually an acronym for "Fully Rely on God".[6][7]
The sweetFrog restaurant's interiors are painted pink and green, and the typical store consists of seven or eight frozen yogurt machines, toppings bars, and merchandise, much of which is centered on sweetFrog's mascots "Scoop" and "Cookie."[8] Based in Scottsdale, Arizona at the time of its acquisition by MTY Food Group, the chain operated 332 locations in the United States and abroad, most of which are franchised. Sweet Frog serves rotating dairy-free options.[9]
History
Derek Cha started sweetFrog with only one restaurant in 2009, and in four years sweetFrog had grown to over 215 stores in 25 states in the U.S. with more stores located internationally in the Dominican Republic, the United Kingdom, and Egypt.[10] In its first 3 years of franchising, over 60 Sweet Frog stores were opened.[11][12] By the spring of 2012, it was reported that Sweet Frog had 100 stores and expected to have 200 by the end of the calendar year[13] Cha's goal was to have 200 sweetFrog stores by the end of 2012.[14] A 24 April 2013 article reported that Sweet Frog had 240 stores at the time of that writing, which would include corporate-owned, licensed, and franchised locations. It added that sweetFrog had grown from 130 stores only seven months earlier in October 2012.[15] By 2020, Cha stated that he would like to have 1,000 U. S. locations and 1,000 international locations[16]
Scoop & Cookie promoting Sweet Frog's first Chicago area restaurant in Frankfort, IL.
On April 17, 2012, Boxwood Capital Partners, LLC announced that it had made a growth capital investment in sweetFrog Enterprises, LLC.[17] Boxwood's minority investment is being used to help fund sweetFrog's expansion plans across the country and internationally.[18] Subsequent to the investment, James Patrick Galleher, the Managing Director at Boxwood Capital Partners became the Chief Executive Officer of sweetFrog Enterprises, LLC.[19][20]
In 2014, sweetFrog was listed #22 on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in 2014 with revenues of $34.4 million.[21]
On February 2, 2015, it was announced that Boxwood Capital Partners, LLC had acquired sweetFrog Enterprises, LLC.[22][23][24]
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