If You Blend It… They Will Come

EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA (Thursday, April 03, 2003) - In the Happy Meal and super-sized world of food and beverage, Dale Wishewan is a pioneer; he melded the two (food and beverage) into a deliciously fruity offering, feeding the appetite of today's active people with a new health-conscious alternative to fast-food.
In doing so he started a trend towards juice and smoothie bars, helped people eat healthier, which in turn helped his pocketbook and future get pretty healthy too.

Wishewan attended post-secondary school in Oregon on an athletic scholarship and made a close friend in the Engineering faculty, who he stayed in contact and eventually went into business with. They created their opportunities by carefully watching the U.S. for new trends and introducing them into the Canadian marketplace.

Booster Juice was born when this friend and business partner, John Amack, asked him a simple question. "How are juice bars doing in Canada?" Dale responded by asking 'What's a juice bar?" and a new business was born. Wishewan started out as a regular, plain old jock, transforming into a juice jock, as CEO and co-owner of Booster Juice.

He explains, "At the time there were no real healthy alternatives to fast food, both of us as healthy individuals and active guys thought it would be nice to get fruits and vegetables in a much more convenient way. We worked hard on making it in Canada, realizing that what works in California and the warmer states, wouldn't necessarily work as well here where it's warm four months a year."

But Canadians are not giving the cold shoulder to Booster Juice, it would seem. The first store opened in Sherwood Park in 1999 and now there are 75 locations across Canada in five provinces, from Victoria to Ottawa. Of these stores, 10 are corporately owned and 65 are franchisee owned.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Booster Juice success story is that their franchises have had little failure to speak of with such a new product introduced into the country, "to this day we haven't had one fail," says Wishewan. "That is almost unheard of right now we're one of the few (juice and smoothie chains) that's never had a store shut. What makes it really great is the fact that we have so many stores more than all of our competition combined, yet all of our competitors have had stores shut

The odds should have been against us on the standpoint of pure numbers, eventually one should fail."

So far none are looking even remotely like they will fall. Rather, Booster Juice has become wildly popular for those with an active lifestyle looking to re-fuel. New customers become repeat customers, visiting their neighbourhood location several times a week.

Booster Juice's status at the top of the juice and smoothie bar food chain is even more noteworthy given that they are headquartered in Alberta—a province known for some of the most stringent franchise laws in the country. The Alberta Disclosure document requires that a prospective franchise owner has to have extensive background information such as past employment and legal history made available to them by the franchisor. Similar steps have to be taken in Ontario. Wishewan says that in the long run this helps him and his company. "It gives people the opportunity to do their due diligence, so we can't misrepresent ourselves. In Alberta and Ontario, if we made a misrepresentation and someone buys a franchise and suffers because of it they can come back and take us to court. For us it's great because we're a very ethical company and we're happy to disclose all information. What it does is keeps unethical franchisers outside of ' Alberta."

Booster Juice is interested in rapid expansion throughout Canada, to perhaps the point of having 400 stores open. Wishewan enthuses, "We've never been in a better position for growth – there is no fear factor of the company not making it. We are also working on some U.S. and International expansion, but it will happen in due course. Right now we know we have so much of the Canadian market to grow in yet, and we want to know where things are working and are keeping our business model.”

For the time being those at Booster Juice have no intentions of moving their Edmonton based headquarters. "Alberta itself happens to be one of the best provinces for business with our rate of corporate taxes, standard of living, affordability…and I’m just a fan of Edmonton!”

Populations around the world are facing an obesity epidemic, and even now fast food companies are suffering from dwindling sales. It's no wonder—the success of juice and smoothie bars is signaling the arrival of a new lifestyle and is a sign of the healthier times we are moving towards. People are more aware of the impact of eating well and are adopting healthier lifestyles, and this extends to their choice of refreshments. As long as they keep asking for smoothies like Breezy Banana and Strawberry Sunshine, Booster Juice will keep blending them, and enjoying unequaled popularity and promise...we'll drink to that.

View all Booster Juice Press Releases

This article has been read 356 times.

Printer Friendly