Clean Juice®, the nation’s first and only USDA-certified organic juice and food bar franchise, has reinvigorated and simplified its operation by moving from in-house bottled cold-pressed juice production to the latest innovation in centralized high-pressure processing (HPP) across all stores. The move also brings Clean Juice closer to the farms where the brand’s all-natural organic ingredients are nurtured, grown and harvested to ensure the freshest ingredients, most consistent bottled juice flavors while simplifying its operations. The transformative shift enables Franchise Partners to focus less on supply chain, labor and production and more on serving the guest with a premium experience.
“Our decision to move our bottled juice production to HPP was based on many factors, most importantly, our commitment to serving only the highest-quality, USDA-certified organic farm-fresh ingredients to our guests at a more affordable price while simplifying the operation for our grinding Franchise Partners across the nation,” said Clean Juice CEO and Co-Founder, Landon Eckles. “After exhaustive research and a pilot program, it was evident that we could maintain our brand promise and provide a tasty bottled organic product, while solving the hindering labor and distribution challenges and reducing costs at the counter for our guests.”
According to Eckles, HPP solves the riddle of processing organic produce without heat, chemical preservatives or additives while maintaining the natural benefits and farm-to-bottle freshness from organic produce. Advances in HPP technology enable Clean Juice to improve the quality, value, safety and consistency of its product, critically important considering the brand’s accelerated growth in less than seven years. With food safety and freshness as two of its core pillars, HPP provides guests with a tastier and more nutritional bottled juice at a lower cost, making healthy living more affordable to more people.
“More importantly, as prices for food and groceries continue to dramatically rise, we took this shift in our business as an opportunity to provide more value for our guests. The prices of our bottled cold-pressed juices, which are a guest-favorite and arguably what we’re known for, were reduced by nearly 20 percent for our guests across all markets – that’s a message that I know will be well received considering what’s happening. The last thing we want is for the expense of living organically and consuming healthy products to be cut because people can’t afford it,” added Eckles.
As an added value to guests, the new centralized HPP process enhanced the nutritional value of several of its bottled juice and wellness shot flavors. For example, the average amount of sugar in each juice was reduced by 25 percent and the average amount of calories were reduced by 34 percent, while the wellness shot sugars were reduced by upwards of 64 percent.
Given the unstable labor and supply chain environment common in the QSR industry today, centralized HPP greatly simplifies the store’s operation by reducing the burden of ordering and preparing its all-organic menu to stringent certification as well as bottling the juice in the back of each store using an expensive cold-press machine.
“This is not just a win-win shift to our business, but it’s a win-win-win shift. The beauty of this process is not just the benefits to our beloved guests and Franchise Partners, but it also creates a pathway for the Clean Juice brand to explore new varieties of enhanced flavors to our bottled cold-pressed juice line as well as new channels. This is what truly excites me for our guests and for the future growth of our brand,” he said. “The future is bright despite the dark narrative dominating today’s economic headlines. The future is organic!”
HPP is a “nonthermal” food preservation technique that incapacitates harmful pathogens and microorganisms by using pressure for preservation. Rooted in the highest level of food safety and shelf-life goals, HPP is relatively young but growing in the industry. HPP Technology, also referred to as high hydrostatic pressure, is the process of placing natural foods and beverages into a vessel (a bottle in our case) and then being subjected to a high level of isostatic pressure, 87,000 psi, transmitted by cold water.
Heading toward the New Year, Clean Juice continues an industry-wide reputable growth streak announcing steady increases in franchise development leads and discovery calls from existing and new franchisees wanting to bring healthier fast casual food options to their communities – with many having experienced Clean Juice in other cities and states. Presently, Clean Juice has 203 stores units within its system, with 127 opened for business and 76 in development.
Year over year, Clean Juice demonstrates continued growth and exceeds expectations across the franchise’s key performance indicators, including same-store sales (SSS) and guest count (SSGC). Clean Juice continues to ascend as the nation’s fastest-growing USDA-certified, organic, fast-casual brand after being recently named to the Inc. 5000 for the fourth year. Its impressive and continuous growth is attributed to its unique certified organic operation and premium guest experience. Named #21 of the top fast-food brands to watch, Clean Juice was founded on product innovation focusing on organic fruits and vegetables with no additives, GMOs, or chemicals and making healthy, fast food accessible to communities across the United States.
