How To Start Your Own Smoothie Business – If you don’t feel ready to take the risk of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and signing a commercial lease, starting a juice business from home is a great place to start and can get you to a point where you feel comfortable having the Investment to make for a real shop front or commercial kitchen.
Here are the topics we will cover to answer your questions about starting a home juice business:
How To Start Your Own Smoothie Business
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“Google it: don’t blatantly copy anyone’s recipe, but get a head start by googling juice recipes so you have an idea of where to start. Sometimes doing it is half the battle (especially at home!). There is so much information available these days – don’t waste your time on things that are already out there and focus on how to innovate differently / differentiate yourself from your competitors. It probably won’t be your recipe that sets you apart – rather sales strategy, brand, speed to market, etc. What makes you unique. “
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“Life is certainly full of surprises – if you had told me that in just a few short years our brand would grow from operating in my parents basement and selling at local farmers markets to a fully automated 6,000 square foot manufacturing facility with a capacity of up to 65,000.” Bottles of fresh juice per day. I would have declared you absolutely insane. But the wild thing is, if you’re willing to put in the work, face your fears, and chase your dreams, anything is possible. So start now. start today Whether it’s in your kitchen or in your parents’ basement – we all have to start somewhere!”
Before we jump into the step-by-step process, it’s important to note that running a raw juice business from home may not be entirely legal under FDA regulations. Many people have done it successfully and continue to do so, but be aware that the FDA may tell you to stop and you’ll eventually have to move to a real commercial kitchen.
Some areas have “cottage laws” that allow you to run a fully licensed commercial juice business from your home, but you need to do your research to be sure what the regulations are in your area.
Before you start juice selling, make sure you have a handful of recipes that your closest friends and family will try and enjoy. Ari Sexner, Juice Management Consultant, recommends starting with a small menu of 5-8 main recipes.
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This gives you enough to offer a full juice cleaning package, but not so much that your menu becomes difficult to manage. Starting with too many options is tedious and difficult to manage. Ari also recommends having two wellness shot recipes. They are a great add-on and very popular.
Pro tip: At almost every cold-pressed juice store, the best-selling recipe is a sweet green juice! Usually a recipe with apple juice as the basis.
Feeling stuck creating recipes? Get a copy of The Juicing Companion, the only juicing book designed to help you create your own unique recipes.
You have to make sure that your recipes are not only delicious but also make you money. That means keeping the cost of groceries at about 25% of the final price. Other costs (bottle, cap, label) can add another 5% to 15%, bringing your total cost to 40%.
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In the above example, the cost of goods is about 30%. A company can make a profit with this margin. Even if you can justify a 50%-60% COGS to run a home business, you will
This way you can run a profitable business if you ever move to a commercial kitchen and hire staff. A juice priced at $10-12 is fairly common if it’s organic in a glass bottle, allowing for a COGS of around $3-4 at a comfortable margin.
Equipment will be the biggest investment you will make for your business. Most importantly, you need to invest in a commercial juicer. If you decide to buy a juicer that isn’t designed for commercial (continuous) use, you run the risk of spending the same or even more money on multiple machines, parts and labor costs, not to mention the annoying downtime of getting frustrated and having to rearrange your recipes and processes once you upgrade to a commercial machine. When evaluating a juicer, make sure it ticks all of these boxes:
The most suitable entry-level commercial machine that includes all of the above features is the M-1 Commercial Cold Press Juicer. The M-1 is the only juicer built for commercial use and small enough to fit on your home counter. Designed for juice bars and other real food and beverage businesses, the M-1 can withstand any use you might throw at your home juice shop.
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The good news is that all of these items can move with you when you’re ready to move into a commercial retail space. For more information, see our free juice bar design PDF.
When you feel like you’re ready to take orders, you actually need a way to do it. The best way is through an online store. Nowadays there are many ways to start an online store. Shopify is the most used and probably has the smallest lift to get started. To learn more about starting an online juice shop, read my articles on selling juice online and choosing an ecommerce platform for your juice business.
To make a good impression, you need some beautiful content. Spend a few hundred dollars and pay a professional photographer/food stylist to photograph your juices for you. It is worthwhile and generates sales for you. The last thing you want is for a customer to come all the way to your website and then be like, “That doesn’t look very professional, I’m not going to buy juice from you.”
Most at-home juice stores generally do not stock juice. They take orders in advance and make the juice available the next day or on a regular schedule. For example, all orders placed Monday through Wednesday will be available or delivered on Thursday, and all orders placed Thursday through Sunday will be available or delivered on Monday.
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This method is generally acceptable when using a juicer as the juice will typically last 3-5 days if you follow our cold pressed juice shelf life guidelines. So customers who receive the juice on Monday can consume it from Monday to Wednesday and then receive their next batch on Thursday.
Producing on such a schedule allows you to plan your production in advance without having to estimate how many products to buy and how much juice to make. It will reduce waste and lower your production costs.
Glass vs. plastic bottles is an ongoing debate and most people agree that glass bottles are preferred, for both environmental and aesthetic reasons – glass bottles definitely feel more premium and some even insist that juicing out of a glass bottle is better tastes good (he keeps it colder which might be the real reason). I wrote more about the decision in my article Plastic vs Glass Bottles.
In terms of size, most companies have gone from 16 ounce bottles to 12 ounce bottles. The lower price point is more appealing to customers, and most people don’t necessarily want to consume a full 16 ounces of juice. For more information on this, see my article here: Why Juices Get Smaller
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Juice shots are also a growing trend and are a great way for customers to get access to quality raw juice without spending $8-$12. A 2-ounce to 4-ounce juice shot is also a great addition to a juice sale.
If you want to offer delivery, make sure you only accept sales in a specific area or you’ll quickly become a full-time driver! In densely populated urban areas, you will find many customers in a small space, so delivery makes a lot of sense. In more rural areas, you might want to stick with pickup only. Or collection and direct delivery.
Starting a business can be both the scariest and most rewarding thing you can do in your life. It’s not an easy decision, but we’re trying to make the process as seamless as possible. Have questions? Call us today. You can find our number in the footer of our website, or you can contact us here.
I’ve been juicing my whole life. My father built his first hydraulic juicer in 1976 and started Products, Inc. I have incredible memories of “cider parties” where we invited everyone in our rural neighborhood to make apple juice. To this day, when I taste apple juice made on a press, an intoxication
