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Sweetgreen is launching its take on the Rice Krispies Treat, its first dessert since 2014.
The company’s Chief Concept Officer Nicolas Jammet told CNBC that the chain plans to keep expanding into dessert.
Sweetgreen worked with pastry chef Malcolm Livingston II to create the Crispy Rice Treat.

Sweetgreen Crispy Rice Treat
Source: Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen is launching its take on Rice Krispies Treats, its first dessert since 2014.
The Crispy Rice Treat is available nationwide starting Monday for $2.95. The prepackaged dessert is made with organic brown rice, quinoa, millet and honey-date caramel. It has190 calories and 6 grams of sugar.

Sweetgreen co-founder and Chief Concept Officer Nicolas Jammet told CNBC the chain has its eye on possibly expanding further into dessert offerings. “We’ll continue to listen to our customers and see how they respond to the first one,” he said.
The salad chain’s only prior dessert was Sweetflow, a frozen yogurt that was briefly available at its stores in Washington, D.C., where the company was founded. It discontinued Sweetflow eight years ago, opting instead to focus on adding heartier options to its menu and implementing online ordering.
“Also, it was around the time when there were just a proliferation of frozen yogurt shops, all over the place,” Jammet said.
The launch comes as Sweetgreen looks for ways to push up sales. The company lowered its full-year outlook in August, citing a slowdown in sales that began around Memorial Day. Still, its second-quarter same-store sales climbed 16%, helped by a 6% hike in prices.
Sweetgreen is slated to report third-quarter results after the bell on Tuesday.

So far this quarter, McDonald’s, Chipotle and Starbucks have reported higher sales, indicating that customers are willing to shell out for more affordable quick eats as inflation squeezes budgets. That’s even as chains raise prices or market more premium menu offerings.
To create the new dessert, Sweetgreen teamed up with pastry chef Malcolm Livingston II as the company’s first chef in residence. Livingston previously worked as the head pastry chef for Noma, a Copenhagen restaurant with three Michelin stars that was named the world’s top restaurant in 2021.
Jammet said he met Livingston a few years ago in Copenhagen and he stayed in touch with the pastry chef. “Since day one, I was always coming into the [Sweetgreen culinary] lab,” Livingston said.
The chain took roughly two years to create the treat and ensure that it fit with Sweetgreen’s principles that blend taste, health and ingredient sourcing, according to Jammet. Livingston said he made many different iterations and used his daughter as taste tester.
It was a “no-brainer” to start with a version of the Rice Krispies Treat given the nostalgia it evokes, Livingston said.
“Also in fast food restaurants, there is a lack of variety when it comes to dessert, and we wanted to offer something that was delicious and craveable but also considered healthy,” he said.
Shares of Sweetgreen have fallen 46% this year, dragging its market value down to $1.88 billion.

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Ryanair posted record summer profits, but adverse developments in Ukraine or with Covid-19 make the sector fragile, airline CEO Michael O’Leary warned.
The Irish airline posted its largest ever after-tax profit for the six months to September at 1.37 billion euros ($1.37 billion) Monday.

Ryanair reported record summer profits, but Chief Executive Michael O’Leary warned winter is “very fragile.”
ATTILA KISBENEDEK / Contributor / Getty Images

Ryanair on Monday reported record summer profits, but CEO Michael O’Leary warned that the winter is likely to be “very fragile.”
“We look set for a strong winter but I’m conscious last year we had omicron at the end of November which crushed Christmas and the Ukraine invasion crushed Easter,” O’Leary told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.

The Irish airline posted its largest ever after-tax profit for the six months to September at 1.37 billion euros ($1.37 billion) on Monday. 
There was an expectation that demand could shrink as the cost-of-living crisis takes its toll on household budgets across Europe, but appetite for travel is still there, he said.

“We’ve been waiting for demand to tighten up but we’ve not seen it yet — but there is a fragility there,” O’Leary told CNBC. “[People] were locked up for two years [during the Covid-19 pandemic], travel is one of the things they’re going to keep doing,” he said.

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Lidar makers Ouster and Velodyne have agreed to merge, combining roughly $400 million in market value.
Under the deal, signed on Friday, Velodyne shareholders will receive 0.8204 shares of Ouster for each Velodyne share they hold – a premium of about 7.8% based on Friday’s market close.
Intense investor interest in the potential of self-driving vehicles led many lidar startups to go public over the last few years. But valuations are now a fraction of what they were.

The New York Stock Exchange welcomes Ouster Inc. (NYSE: OUST), today, Friday, March 12, 2021, in celebration of its Initial Listing. To honor the occasion, Ouster CEO Angus Pacala, joined by Chris Taylor, Vice President, NYSE Listings and Services, rings The Opening Bell®.

Lidar makers Ouster and Velodyne have agreed to merge, combining roughly $400 million in market value.
The companies said on Monday that they will join forces to increase their competitiveness in a market segment that has seen valuations plummet as investors have grown disillusioned with autonomous-vehicle technology.

Lidar, short for “light detection and ranging,” is a sensor technology that uses invisible lasers to create a highly detailed 3-D map of the sensor’s surroundings. Lidar sensors are considered important components of nearly all autonomous-vehicle systems currently under development, and are finding increasing applications with advanced driver-assist systems as well as other areas of robotics.
Intense investor interest in the potential of self-driving vehicles led many lidar startups to go public over the last few years. But valuations are now a fraction of what they were two years ago, and prominent automakers including Ford Motor and Volkswagen have trimmed investments in autonomy in favor of more limited driver-assist systems.
Under the deal, signed on Friday, Velodyne shareholders will receive 0.8204 shares of Ouster for each Velodyne share they hold – a premium of about 7.8% based on Friday’s closing prices for the two companies’ stocks.
Ouster’s founder and CEO, Angus Pacala, will lead the combined company, which doesn’t yet have an official name. Velodyne CEO Ted Tewksbury, who joined the lidar maker last year, will chair the post-merger company’s board of directors.
“We all knew that there is a need for consolidation in the market,” Pacala told CNBC. “This is us actually going out and doing it.”

Pacala said the combined company will be a more formidable competitor, with streamlined manufacturing, over 170 patents and what he described as “complementary customer bases, partners and distribution channels.”
The companies have identified about $75 million in savings that can be realized in the first nine months after the transaction closes, he said.
The combined company will also be relatively flush, critical in a market where it has become difficult for not-yet-profitable startups to raise cash. Between them, Ouster and Velodyne had a combined $355 million in cash as of September 30, Pacala said.
Velodyne was an early pioneer in automotive lidar, developing its first sensor in 2007. Its distinctive “puck” sensors were seen on most early autonomous-vehicle prototypes. But its early units, which cost $75,000 each and had delicate moving parts, were too expensive and fragile for use on mass-produced vehicles.
Velodyne was eventually able to reduce the cost of its puck sensors to $4,000 while making them more robust. But as newer rivals with solid-state lidar sensors — including Ouster, founded in 2015 — entered the automotive space, the early leader fell behind.
Velodyne still owns critical lidar patents, and it hasn’t hesitated to enforce them. The company sued Ouster for patent infringement earlier this year, and brought a related action before the U.S. International Trade Commission seeking to block Ouster from importing its lidar units into the United States. (Ouster’s lidar units are made in Thailand by contract manufacturer Benchmark Electronics.)
The companies will hold a joint webcast at 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday to discuss the merger. Ouster will report its third-quarter results after the U.S. markets close on Monday; Velodyne is scheduled to report its results after markets close on Tuesday.

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Outbreaks, port refusals, travelers stuck onboard.
Cruise ships dominated the news in early 2020 for all the wrong reasons. Some people predicted the industry would never recover.

But cruising fans say: That’s ancient history.  
“Given a choice, we would be living on the cruise ship for the remainder of our lives,” said Singaporean Peter Lim.
Those troubles from 2020 are “not of any concern,” he said. “We are all vaccinated [and] take and observe personal health protocols.”
Lim said he’s “lost count” of how many cruises he and wife have been on and has already planned three cruises through 2023.
He’s likes “waking up in a different country the next day,” plus the great customer service and loyalty benefits cruises provide.

Lim said he wasn’t swayed by reports last week of a Covid-19 outbreak onboard the Coral Princess, a cruise ship that is circumnavigating Australia.
Last week, four out of 12 cruise ships monitored by New South Wales, Australia had Covid-19 cases onboard, according to the government’s website. The Coral Princess was categorized as “Tier 3” — the highest risk level — indicating that more than 10% of passengers are positive or that the vessel is unable to maintain critical services.
Pursuant to Australian regulations, passengers who test positive onboard cruise ships must self-isolate for at least five days. But that’s a far cry from being “trapped” onboard, as some media reports suggested, said Lim.
Those who weren’t infected were “allowed by local health authorities to enjoy schedules and programs,” he said.

No longer concerned about Covid

Nearly two out of three travelers say they are no longer concerned about Covid-19 on cruises, according to a survey of 4,200 customers of the travel insurance company Squaremouth.
The company said this is a “complete shift” from earlier this year, when 63% of its customers said Covid-19 was their biggest cruise-related concern. Now, respondents say they are more worried about weather and airline disruptions, according to the survey published in October.  

Popular ports of call, such as the Bahamas, are dropping Covid requirements such as requiring cruise passengers be vaccinated to disembark.
Daniel Piraino / Eyeem | Eyeem | Getty Images

The “2022 Member Survey” published by Cruiseline.com and the booking app Shipmate showed 91% of respondents planned to take a cruise by 2023.
Regular leisure travelers are also open to cruising again, according to a new report by Arrivia. The travel loyalty provider, which operates programs for American Express, Bank of America and USAA, said 75% of members indicated plans to cruise in the next two years.
The pandemic didn’t scare away new recruits either. Indian national Neel Banerjee said he had “no qualms” about cruising this month with his family on Royal Caribbean’s Spectrum of the Seas — his first cruise ever.
He said he felt safe, and that his family wore masks in crowded areas.
He may cruise again as early as next year, he said.

An ‘explosion of bookings’

When cruise lines started to drop vaccination and testing requirements in August, the industry saw “an explosion of bookings,” according to Patrick Scholes, a managing director of lodging and leisure at Truist Securities.
He told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” in September that this was especially true for luxury cruises.
Norwegian Cruise Line “has far and away the greatest exposure to luxury and super-high-end luxury … that component of consumer spending in travel is blowing away the mass market spending,” he said.

Grenada’s Tourism Authority said 202 cruises are scheduled to visit the island in the coming season, representing an 11% increase from the year before the pandemic.
Michaela Urban / Eyeem | Eyeem | Getty Images

When bookings opened for the Norwegian Prima, a new class of ship for Norwegian Cruise Line, it led to the “single best booking day and week in our company’s 55-year history,” Braydon Holland, Norwegian’s senior director, told CNBC.
Stefanie Schmudde, a vice president of product and operations at the luxury travel operator Abercrombie & Kent, said a rise in popularity of expedition cruising has taken travel advisors by surprise.

Luxury travel operator Abercrombie & Kent said it is on track to have a “record year” in expedition cruising.
Source: Abercrombie & Kent

“Expedition cruising” is a subset of cruising that involves smaller ships, remote destinations and talks with onboard specialists, such as marine biologists and astronauts, said Schmudde.
“Expedition cruising represents a higher percentage of our bookings than at any time in A&K’s 60-year history,” she said. “Not only is demand surpassing pre-pandemic levels, but in many instances, so too is average spend.”

Recovery by 2027

Despite a strong showing this year, the global cruising industry won’t return to pre-pandemic levels until 2027, according to the market research provider Euromonitor International.
In 2019, the global cruising industry grossed some $67.9 billion, according to Euromonitor. This year, it’s expected to bring in slightly more than half that amount — about 38 billion — climbing 7% annually, to reach total retail sales of $67.9 billion again in five years.
Global recovery is being held back by two regions — Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific, said Prudence Lai, senior analyst at Euromonitor.
Without elaborating, Lai cited “geopolitical tensions” that are stunting growth in Europe.
In Asia, the problem is due “mainly to the slow recovery in China … due to the strict zero-tolerance Covid policies,” she said.
China has historically made up about 80% of the Asia-Pacific’s cruise market, said Lai. But “currently we only are seeing around 55% of pre-Covid levels driven by [the] domestic sector especially in regions [near the] Southern China Sea and Yangtze River,” she said.  
Cruising revenues in Asia-Pacific are expected to remain stagnant this year as well as 2023, reaching about 75% of pre-pandemic levels by 2027, according to Euromonitor’s market research database Passport. More

Fox won the right to buy an 18.6% stake in sports betting company FanDuel Group from its parent company Flutter, but not at the valuation, according to a ruling Friday from a New York arbitrator.
Should Fox exercise its option to take the stake, it would be at a price of at least $3.72 billion.
The decision ends the more-than-yearlong lawsuit between the two companies over the valuation of FanDuel, one of the leading U.S. sports betting platforms alongside services from DraftKings, Caesars and MGM.

The FanDuel Inc. app.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Fox won the right to buy an 18.6% stake in sports betting company FanDuel Group from its parent company Flutter, but not at the valuation, according to a ruling Friday from a New York arbitrator.
Should Fox exercise its option to take the stake, it would be at a price of at least $3.72 billion.

The decision ends the more-than-yearlong lawsuit between the two companies over the valuation of FanDuel, which has emerged as one of the leading U.S. sports betting platforms alongside services from DraftKings, Caesars and MGM.
The price that Fox would have to pay is based on a FanDuel valuation of $20 billion, according to the ruling. Flutter, which owns nearly 95% of FanDuel, acquired a 37.2% stake in the company in December 2021 at an implied valuation of $11.2 billion. Fox had argued the price should be based on that threshold.
Still, Fox could have been ordered to pay much more. A March 2021 estimate by Jeffries analysts said FanDuel could worth up to $35 billion, which would value a nearly one-fifth stake at closer to $6 billion.
“Fox is pleased with the fair and favorable outcome of the Flutter arbitration,” the company said in a statement following the ruling. “Fox has no obligation to commit capital towards this opportunity unless and until it exercises the option. This optionality over a meaningful equity stake in the market leading U.S. online sports betting operation confirms the tremendous value Fox has created as a first mover media partner in the U.S. sports betting landscape.”
Fox has a 10-year option to acquire the stake, which runs through December 2030. The arbitrator ruled that there would be a 5% annual escalator on its purchase price, meaning the current price of a deal would be $4.1 billion.

“Today’s ruling vindicates the confidence we had in our position on this matter and provides certainty on what it would cost Fox to buy into this business, should they wish to do so,” said Flutter CEO Peter Jackson in a statement.
As part of the arbitration ruling, Flutter cannot pursue an IPO for FanDuel without Fox’s consent or approval from the arbitrator. Flutter had previously considered taking FanDuel public, taking advantage of the booming sports betting market.
Sports betting has continued to grow in the U.S. as more states bring legal sports betting online — as of Nov. 1, 33 states allow some form of sports betting, with California having two measures on its ballot to legalize it.
That has pushed up revenues as well. Commercial sports betting revenue nationally through August was $3.97 billion, up nearly 70% year over year, according to data from the American Gaming Association.
But that continued growth hasn’t benefitted all public sports betting companies. DraftKings stock posted its worst-ever decline on Friday after the company reported monthly customer growth that fell short of estimates even as it revised its revenue forecast upwards. DraftKings, which is down more than 59% year-to-date, is now valued at just over $5 billion.

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Will Guidara, former owner of some of New York’s most expensive restaurants, says he has learned that some of the best service experiences are small gestures unrelated to the amount being spent.
His concept of “unreasonable hospitality” applies to every business and the gifts that each of us buy for loved ones, because “we’re all in the business of serving other people,” he said at the recent CNBC Work Summit.

Gift-giving can be a good way to learn how good you are at hospitality. And if you think success comes down to the amount being spent, you are setting yourself up for failure, according to one of the world’s most renowned restauranteurs.
Will Guidara, former owner of elite New York City restaurant Eleven Madison Park, thought his soon-to-be wife would love the Cartier necklace he bought her for their one-year anniversary. Instead, she pretended to like it and only wore it once. When Guidara saw his wife’s disappointment at the New York Times ending its sudoku-meets-crossword-puzzle game “Boxing Match,” he hired the creator of the game to make another 50 levels that he printed out into a book for his wife. Guidara was surprised to see that his wife appreciated this gift far more than the thousands of dollars he spent on the necklace.

“That ‘Boxing Match’ book would not have made sense to give to another human being on the planet,” Guidara said in a conversation with Squawk Box” co-anchor Becky Quick at CNBC’s Work Summit last week. “She felt seen, she felt loved and she felt known,” he said.
The lesson, according to Guidare: The weight that money holds is incomparable to the weight that time holds to humans. Money can be made back, time can’t.

The unexpected is more valuable than the expensive

“When someone gives us time, when someone gives us energy, the feeling of that gift is absolutely overwhelming,” he said. And it may not even cost anything. Giving time and attention, “and listening, that being present for someone … that’s the greatest gift we can give someone, and that’s what unreasonable hospitality is all about,” said Guidara, author of the book “Unreasonable Hospitality.”
This concept has helped Guidara not only as a husband, but as a restaurateur. He became the general manager of Eleven Madison Park back in 2006, where he and chef Daniel Humm led the struggling restaurant to become ranked among the world’s best.

Daniel Humm (L) and Will Guidara celebrate with their trophies after winning the Worlds Best Restaurant award at the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards in Melbourne on April 5, 2017.
Mal Fairclough | Afp | Getty Images

Under the Make it Nice hospitality group, the two went on to open NoMad New York, Nomad Bar, Made Nice, NoMad Los Angeles and NoMad Las Vegas. After selling his share of the businesses to Humm, Guidara joined forces with New York Times’ best-selling author and Optimism Press publisher Simon Sinek to publish his book.

“If any organization has a customer or a client, there are lessons in unreasonable hospitality that can absolutely be applied, and it fundamentally all boils down to listening,” Sinek said at the CNBC Work Summit. “What Will does and what he trained his team to do was to be totally present and listen for opportunities where you can surprise and delight someone with something unexpected,” Sinek said.

America is built on service relationships

America is a service economy. More than three-quarters of GDP are from service industries.
“When you look at those services, whether it’s financial services, computer services, health care, insurance, retail, everyone that does any of those things does the same thing for a living that I do. We’re all in the business of serving other people,” Guidara said.
Eleven Madison Park became the No. 1 restaurant in one influential world ranking not because its food was amazing or its service was technically perfect, “but because we did things that went far above and beyond for our guests,” Guidara said.
One night, Guidara recalled, he saw the kids of a family from Spain mesmerized by the snow falling outside his restaurant. By the time the family was done eating, Guidara had purchased sleds and had a car waiting outside to take them to Central Park to go sledding. Another time, a couple showed up at Guidara’s restaurant bummed because their beach vacation got canceled. By the end of the night, the private dining room was transformed into a beach for the couple to enjoy, with sand on the ground and a kiddie pool to dip their feet in.

Covid and solving problems as a hospitality model

Covid has changed the world, but Guidara and Sinek believe that it has not altered the value of unreasonable hospitality. In fact, to be a source of kindness for someone today can not only make them feel good but can ultimately make you feel good.
“Now that we’re all so short-tempered and we’re all still dealing with the trauma of Covid, we now sort of have this expectation that other people should be looking after us. What I’ve learned is that the way to solve our own problems is actually to help other people solve the same problem,” Sinek said.
“The current climate is not a reason why this can’t work. It’s a reason why this is the exact thing we should all be leaning into,” Guidara said.
Videos of all CNBC Work Summit panels and interviews will be available exclusively on demand through Friday, November 11.  Learn more and get access now. More

Hundreds of climate activists swarmed a private jet section of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Saturday as part of a day of demonstrations in and around the airport.
The activists stopped several aircraft from taking off by sitting in front of their wheels.
Commercial flights were not delayed as of early afternoon.

Climate activists protest against environmental pollution from aviation at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, in Schiphol, Netherlands November 5, 2022.
Piroschka Van De Wouw | Reuters

Hundreds of climate activists swarmed a private jet section of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Saturday as part of a day of demonstrations in and around the airport.
The activists stopped several aircraft from taking off by sitting in front of their wheels. Commercial flights were not delayed as of early afternoon. The environmental groups Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion organized the demonstrations to protest the aviation industry’s pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as local noise pollution, according to the organizations.

Demonstrators also protested in the airport’s main hall and carried signs that read “Restrict Aviation” and “More Trains,” according to a Reuters report. Military police said in a statement that they had detained several “persons who were on airport property without being allowed.”
“We’ve been campaigning to stop Schiphol’s large-scale pollution for years, and with good reason. The airport should be reducing its flight movements, but instead it’s building a brand new terminal. The wealthy elite are using more private jets than ever, which is the most polluting way to fly,” Dewi Zloch of Greenpeace Netherlands said in a statement.
Greenpeace said Schiphol is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the Netherlands, reportedly emitting more than 12 billion kilograms annually. The airport responded to the climate demonstrations by saying it will aim to become emissions-free by 2030 and that it supports targets for the entire industry to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Schiphol CEO Ruud Sondag said in a statement that he has been committed to a sustainable Netherlands for 25 years, and that he shares the activists’ sense of urgency.
“As an aviation sector, we must do everything we can to become quieter and cleaner. That’s my view. The task is immense, but achievable,” he said according to a translation of the statement. Sondag said he plans to talk to Greenpeace, employees, trade unions and others in the coming days.

“And for Saturday,” he said, “be welcome, but keep it tidy.”
The Dutch government is reportedly considering whether to include private jet traffic in its climate policy. The government in June announced a 440,000-person cap on annual passengers at the airport, citing air pollution and climate concerns.

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Despite the rise of sophisticated crypto frauds and ransomware plots, phone scams continue to trick Americans out of tens of billions of dollars each year.
“It’s very cheap to set up an automatic dialer and to plug a bunch of phone numbers into it, whether they’re random or they are very intentional by geography or by demographic, and place millions of phone calls in a very short period of time,” said Clayton LiaBraaten, senior executive advisor at Truecaller. “It’s a numbers game.”

Phone scams are on the rise. Truecaller, which makes an app that blocks spam calls, estimates that nearly 70 million Americans have lost money to phone scams in 2022, and that those scammers made off with nearly $40 billion in total. Phone scams include frauds that begin with calls and text messages.Watch the video above to learn more about why phone scams remain so prevalent, how people are fighting back against them and how not to become a victim.

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