A Fruitful Business!

EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA (Thursday, September 20, 2001) -


A Fruitful Business!

Started by health-conscious hippies in California 30 years I ago, the juice bar and smoothie craze is squeezing new life out of Canada's competitive beverage sector. While the fast-food segment is growing at barely five per cent each year, juice and smoothie bars are blending up annual growth that tops 25 per cent, according to Entrepreneur magazine. The NPD Group began tracking their growth just last year and, in the 12 months ending February 2001, the chiller/frappes/smoothies category captured an incidence of 0.5 per cent (share of occasions).
One of the biggest players in the rapidly expanding sector is Edmonton-based Booster Juice, which has catapulted to more than 50 locations in less than two years. By year end, co-founders Jon Amack and Dale Wishewan, both 33 years old, are aiming to have 80 outlets open from Western Canada to Ontario, making it one of the fastest-growing franchises in Canada. Not bad for two friends, one Canadian and one American, who met while attending university in Oregon and decided to swap their engineering degrees for the lure of the highly competitive foodservice market.

Since opening their first unit in the Edmonton bedroom community of Sherwood Park in November 1999, the pair has moved quickly to capture a growing public thirst for nutritious fruit-, yogurt and sherbet-based drinks as alternatives to caffeinated beverages. As made-to-order blended drinks have burst out of health food stores, they've created a new juice culture. American juice bar giants such as Jamba Juice and Smoothie King are opening hundreds of outlets every year, helping to grow an industry that, in the U.S., has already topped $1 billion.

It's a phenomenon that Amack and Wishewan are convinced is ripe for similar growth in Canada. When they started Booster Juice, neither possessed any direct food industry experience. Still, they plunged in head first, bringing their analytical, process-oriented minds and an energetic, youthful passion to the venture. "We watched as juice bars worked their way north from California, and knew that the concept would eventually reach Canada," Wishewan explains. "We wanted to get here first and do it right, because a lot of the American operators just weren't doing it right; they were too focused on profit and not enough on quality, which is the way to grow a business for the long run."

To make sure they had the execution precisely correct, the partners studied those American operators and researched Canadian market forces, demographics and tested hundreds of recipes. "We experimented a lot because we wanted the quality to be exceptional and we knew that what worked in the U.S. wouldn't necessarily work in Canada," Amack says. "The Canadian climate is colder and we took that into account when we designed the menu."

The resulting recipes - from power, berry and tropical smoothies to freshly squeezed juice blends - satisfy customer tastes with their delicious fruit and vegetable flavors, while also enticing customers with a choice of health-enhancing herbal additives. Echinacea, ginseng, bee pollen, gingko biloba and goldenseal, for instance, make up the "booster" part of the equation (in the name Booster Juice). In planning the business, top-quality ingredients were sourced, as were suppliers that could meet the demands of a quickly growing venture.

As part of the development process, the partners brought in a dietitian to evaluate the nutrient values. "It's essential to balance sugar with fiber, and to know which combinations will work and which ones taste great but give a sugar buzz," says Amack. The partners say one of the biggest challenges is educating consumers on what smoothies actually are. A lot of people view them simply as expensive beverages, but Amack and Wishewan want their customers to know that smoothies - with their abundance of healthy ingredients - are actually substantial enough to be considered a snack or even a meal replacement.

After initially concentrating on growth in Alberta, the company has begun aggressive expansion in western Canada and Ontario and has opened two-person offices in Toronto and Vancouver. Over the next few months, at least six locations are expected to open in the Greater Toronto Area. Booster Juice's prime competitor, Calgary-based Jugo Juice, currently has 20 locations and is aiming to have 36 in operation across the country by the end of this year, including half a dozen around Toronto. The Booster Juice partners know they have to hit the ground running. "It comes down to getting the best locations," says Wishewan.

Amack and Wishewan established an infrastructure that could support quick expansion, hiring key people to fill head office roles and establishing a strategic plan that could be readily adapted. "We knew we would need to move quickly or else we'd lose opportunities," Amack says. The locations in shopping malls, strip malls and street fronts are designed in-house by the Booster Juice team, and, with their vibrant color schemes, pour out like the juices that are their inspiration. "We wanted to establish a fruit feel," Amack explains of the screaming lemon, cherry and grape color scheme. "We build environments that are magnetic and energetic."

While the 15-person head office team carefully examines site influences and data, Wishewan says site selection is often based on gut instinct. "You can't just use a spreadsheet and look at traffic flow and population density and say this is or isn't going to work. We ask a very simple question: "Does this location match the vision of what we do?' If the answer is 'Yes,' then we move ahead."

Unlike some franchises that are cookie-cutter variations of an original design, Booster Juice tries to make each location better than the last. "We're aiming to outdo our previous sites. Rather than pushing to build 50 stores exactly the same, we're pushing to improve on each store and make number 35 better than 36," says Wishewan.

The company makes its own fresh non-fat yogurt, and its premium wheatgrass - an organic powerhouse of amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, lecithin and chlorophyll - is grown on site. Food offerings are deliberately limited to panini sandwiches, muffins and assorted freshly baked snack items priced from $2 to $4.50 because, as Wishewan explains, "We're a juice bar. People won't come looking for a big meal. We wanted to offer a few grilled and healthy items, but keep it simple and limited."

With an initial investment starting at $185,000, the concept boasts low startup costs. Ease of operation and considerable growth potential are also strong attributes, according to the owners. Franchisees, who are often young couples, are particularly drawn to the chain by a sense of fun. It's a vibrant, energetic business that promotes health, positive energy and entices customers to return, building a loyal clientele. "Being healthy can add a lot to your life," says Amack, who was in training to run the Portland Marathon when he was interviewed for this article. "Young people want to work at Booster Juice; it's seen as a cool place to be. That's going to help us build a substantial chain that will dominate the market."

Crew members are provided with 10 hours of training on product knowledge, equipment operation and customer service. Franchisees receive 10 days of training at the company's 10,000-sq.-ft. Edmonton head office, including classroom sessions and hands-on training at a full-blown juice bar. The sessions teach product knowledge, business development and management strategies, and new franchisees participate in role-playing exercises to hone their customer relations skills. The company also provides pre-opening and grand opening assistance.

With so many juice bars flooding the market so quickly, the partners know they must set Booster Juice apart from the competition. "We're making our system respond well to the franchisees and we're working at building long-term relationships," Wishewan explains. "If they do well, we do well." Currently, two thirds of the chain's 50 locations are franchised, with the rest are company-owned.

In the months ahead, the company is looking to expand into overseas markets. "The beauty of it is that people are getting healthier (and are therefore living longer)," says Amack. "That means we're now building our client base and, if we do it right, they're going to be with us for a long time."

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