If you’re looking for a juice bar business plan, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, I’ll go over the four basic business models for a cold-pressed juice bar / business:
*Technically not a juice bar business, but worth considering.
I will give a high level overview of each business type and it’s pros and cons as I see them.
Note: This How to Write a Juice Business Plan PDF is a step-by-step guide to helping you write a business plan for your juice business. Download it for free!
1. Delivery Only
Delivery juice businesses have the lowest startup cost, and are an OK place to start. Some of the most successful brands today have started this way.
This business model allows you to start small. I have met several owners of successful cold-pressed juice business that started by either making juice in a rented commissary kitchen (you can usually rent by the hour), or in some cases even making juice at home and delivering your orders from there. It’s worth pointing out that it may not be totally legal under FDA regulations to run a raw juice business from home. Many people have done it successfully and continue to do so, but just be aware that the FDA may tell you to stop and make you move to a real commercial kitchen at some point.
If you want to learn more about starting a juice business from home, you can read our article here.
You can allow customers to place orders for juices and cleanses online to be delivered the next day. Or, if you have your production and inventory under control, you can deliver immediately.
You can build an ecommerce website very cheaply these days that can take order for juices and cleanses. If building an ecommerce website on a budget, I recommend starting with wix. The process really isn’t very complicated to get an ecommerce site up and running. You can also try to offer your products on local delivery apps like Uber eats.
Other than needing juice bar equipment, staff, and an ecommerce website, you will need to do some marketing. Facebook has amazingly targeted marketing these days, and it’s relatively cheap. You can, for example, advertise to people in your area who have “liked” photos and accounts related to health food, nutrition, and fitness. If your Instagram and Facebook game is on fleek you should be able to fill a decent amount of orders, as long as the competition isn’t too high in your area.
Once you get some orders rolling you can invest in a larger production space and put some more money into a better website and marketing. Then, you can pivot to one of the more cost intensive juice bar business plans below.
2. Retail Juice Bar
Opening a brick and mortar store takes a much larger investment than a delivery only juice bar business. If you do it right though, having a retail store in a high traffic area can be great marketing for your brand. Customers can come in and “feel” what your brand is about. You can meet you customers, educate them about your products, and provide an experience beyond just selling a product.
These days, you need to do more than sell bottled juice out of a cooler. You will need to offer other beverages like smoothies and coffee, and you should offer some food items as well. The food can be simple grab-and-go items if you want to focus on the juice, but don’t take it lightly. Many of the businesses that only sell bottled juice are struggling or even closing their doors as the market has grown and customers have more options. This will continue to happen as more businesses get into fresh juice, like grocery stores and cafes.
When you grow to multiple locations, you will need to decide if you want to make your cold-pressed juice in each location, or produce it centrally in one kitchen then distribute out to your other stores. There are pros and cons with each model.
When making juice in a central location and distributing, you can reduce labor and equipment costs. With economies of scale, the more juice you can make in each batch, the cheaper it will be per ounce (there are exceptions).
The major challenge, however, is managing the inventory correctly so your stores are neither wasting juice that doesn’t sell, nor under-producing for demand. This is very difficult to do. Customers are unpredictable and something as simple as a rainy day can be devastating to a normal day of sales.
If you decide to juice in each location, you will need more equipment, and the labor costs will be slightly higher since you are making less juice per batch. There two major advantages with this method:
- You can make juice as needed throughout the day so you will be left minimal wasted juice.
- Customers appreciate the fact that their juice is fresh.
If the customer wonder if the juice has been sitting on a shelf for 3 days, they are less likely to buy. If they see juice being made, there is no doubt in their mind that the product they’re buying is fresh. A great example of successful juice business that makes juice fresh daily in each store is Cafe Gratitude.
3. Wholesale
(Note: This is not technically a juice bar business — it’s a juice factory business — but it is a plan worth considering.)
It’s hard to start small as a wholesale brand, so if you’re going to go wholesale, you probably need to go big out of the gate. This requires a big investment in marketing and a factory. There are a couple of major reasons for this:
When you are selling to 3rd parties for resale in the US, you must use HPP or another pasteurization method to achieve a 5 log kill, meaning you are ensuring that most of the potentially harmful pathogens have been killed. This means you either have to buy an HPP machine (expensive) or pay an HPP facility to process your juice for you, but normally they require a minimum order amount of thousands of bottles. Read more about HPP.
Another major challenge is that you must let the re-seller make 30%-40% profit, meaning you have to sell to them at a discount. On the other hand, you don’t need to invest in brick and mortar stores so you can keep your overhead relatively low compared to owning a bunch of juice bars.
The ultimate goal here is to get picked up by regional and national grocery stores. There are a lot of grocery stores in every country. In the US alone there are over 40,000 grocery stores. Kroger and Albertsons each own about 2,000 stores. Getting into the national distribution network can be tricky, and you probably have to get in through a distributor like UNFI. If you can accomplish that, then the “juice is loose” as they say.
4. Combination
The most successful cold-pressed juice companies are usually doing all of the above. At least one brick and mortar store in a nice area to help with branding and marketing, a great e-commerce website to order juice, and a large wholesale network.
Note: Whether you’re starting a juice bar, a juice delivery service, or a wholesale juice business, this How to Write a Juice Business Plan guide explores the key elements of a successful juice business plan, along with industry tips, resources, and downloadable content to help you write it. Get it for free!
Where to Start On Your Juice Bar Business Plan
There is no magic formula for a successful juice company, but it almost always starts with a passionate owner. You will run into serious challenges along the way, and if you’re not passionate about juice, it will be hard to find the energy to persevere.
Start small, make juice for friends and family, experiment with recipes and see what they like, and try to build a loyal following. From there, you can start talking to them about your juice business and the rest will work itself out.
Want more tips and information about starting a successful juice business? Check out one of these articles:
About The Author
Charlie Wettlaufer
President and CMO - Goodnature
Host - Cold Pressed Truth and Goodnature Radio
Creator - JuiceCon
I’ve been around juicing all my life. My Dad built his first hydraulic juice press in 1976 and founded the company Goodnature Products, Inc. I have incredible memories of having “cider parties” when we would invite all the people in our rural neighborhood over to make apple juice. To this day, when I taste apple juice made on a Goodnature press, a rush of nostalgia runs through my body.
I pride myself on guiding our clients into the world of cold-pressed juice and showing them how much fun this industry can be. I love talking business, technology, and marketing. My missions is to carry on my Dad's goal - one day make Goodnature a house-hold name.
Comments
How much money can I make doing cold press? I have a single juice bar location.
Hi Jake, one of our team members will email to discuss thanks!
Love 🥤
Infomation
Hi, I need help to know how to calculate my wholesale price juice per liter. Can you help please ? Thx
Hello Adeline, the First step for calculating wholesale pricing is making sure you know how much produce is going into each bottle and then determining your exact cost per bottle, From there you can factor in your labor, bottle cost, overhead, etc. As well as your food cost. Most operations will try to run a 20-30% food cost. Then for wholesale accounts, they might raise that up to 30-35%. Please let me know if you would like to set up a quick call to discuss and answer some questions further. You can reach me at Aris@goodnature.com.
good information..
Hi! I’m wondering if putting fridges that we own and are partnering in shared locations near by locations can be considered a hub for our juice to be accessible in other places without having to open an additional brick and mortar? We already have one location but looking to expand without HPP
Hi Cydnie! The method your describing has been done before, and some companies do it today. It's sort of gray area. Some health departments will say that as long as the juice is not being bought and re-sold that it's ok, but others will say no. Some will say you can do it, but you need to have your own POS device at the fridge so the money goes direct to your company. Some areas will even say it's ok to Wholesale the juice. It really all depends on the local health inspectors. The best thing to do is just reach out to the local health department and ask them.
Hi, my girlfriend and I are applying for an LLC for our in home juicing business and wanted to know if we should be selecting our business as a 'Benefit Company' or should we leave both Restricted Professional and Benefit Company blank? We live in PA.
Hi Kamel, Congrats on starting a juice business!! According to what I've read, a 'Benefit Company' and a 'Restricted Professional Company' are specialized LLCs that can be formed at the time of filing or you may elect specialized status by amendment after the fact. It does not appear to me that you would elect to file with either of these statuses, but you can read more about what they entail on the Pennsylvania government site here: https://www.dos.pa.gov/BusinessCharities/Business/Resources/Pages/Pennsylvania-Limited-Liability-Company.aspx Hope this helps 😄
I want to start my own brand of lemonade with my own unique delicious unforgettable flavor!
Hi Carla, That's a great idea! I will have our chef and juice business consultant Ari send you an email so you have his contact info in case you have any questions 😄
Please I have started a juicing company from home. However, I don't add any preservatives to my juice so they always ought to be in a fridge. I've seen your your juice in a box outside cold storage. Whats the secret please?
If juice is shelf stable (doesn’t need to be cold) it means it has been heat pasteurized.
I have been Juicing and love it. I have been thinking of starting a business because I love the benefits juicing gives and feel people would enjoy it. I already have a name for it and a logo. My question is Where do I go to get certified to sale juice and to paten my logo name?
Miranda, you would need to speak to your local health department about meeting the requirements of selling juice on a commercial level. As far as your logo is concerned, you can file a trademark with the USPTO: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/filing-online
Hi! I'm from Mumbai (India) and I've a started a small business at home of cold press juices. In 3 months I've noticed a high demand and I sell almost 400-500 bottles a month now. My business is registered and I'm highly interested in expanding my business, however I need more money to make an investment in commercial cold press juicer like yours and HPP. My subscribers are increasing day by day and I wanted to get your opinion/suggestion whether I should stick to this subscription and delivery based business or should I actually find investment for my HPP machine? I'm honestly confused. Help would be appreciated. Thank you!!
Shieny, I think at 500 bottles per month you should stick to making raw juice and delivering it. HPP machines are over $500K US and are meant to extend shelf life so you can sell juice wholesale to retailers, which is a very different business model that is very competitive and hard to make profitable. Once you get to making hundreds of bottles per day, you could think abuot approaching some retailers to see if they would be interested in selling your juice, and if they are then you could consider partnering with a local facility that already owns an HPP machine to HPP your juice for you. Let me know if that helps
We sell organic lemonades with infused simple syrups. No cold-pressed. We have a storefront and have been approached by a nationwide chain to sell "ready-to-drink" lemonades in a pet beverage bottle. Would I still want to use HPP since I can't "hot water bath" them like we do in jars? Thanks and I'd love some ideas 😄
Have you considered pasteurizing the lemonade before bottling instead of after? That might be the best solution. HPP may not be necessary.
Dear sir, I want to start my cold press juice business, my idea is I will manufacture a juice in night and door delivery at early morning for daily basis. My question is must require HPP process in cold press juice ? I can't buy HPP machine my investment cost is low please any ideas.
HPP isn't necessary. HPP extends shelf life of juice from about 3 days to about 40 days. If you are delivering daily, no need for HPP!
hi. thank you for all those advices. i start my little juice factory 3 years ago in a shared kitchen. it was direct delivry but now i would like to start selling online. i need to pasteurize my product using HPP technic. So do you have any idea for small HPP machine on the market? also can you help me with the shelves for the product . thanks
HPP machines are all very big and very expensive ($500K+) due to the high pressure needed. Most companies pay a "HPP tolling facility" to process the product for them on a per bottle or per pound or product cost basis, for example $0.30 / per pound of juice.
Ever since I had a taste of the cold presses juices in BKK I have been wondering heavily how can bring such business to the Philippines, my country. I really want to begin even if a delivery only business initially. My problem is I don’t know where to start. Can you help me how to? Thanks so much.
Faye, I think a great place to start is by reading the other articles on this juicing blog, as there is a lot of useful information for somebody starting a juice business. Let me know if you have any questions along the way.
Hello GoodNature family! Love your commentary and your products. I will be starting a cold-press juice business very soon and I was hoping you could explain to me just how it's done! Do I buy from vegetable produce from the store or the farm? I buy a commercial juicer and then bottle it myself straight into the bottle? Then get the bottle labelled and FDA label approved? Then distribute and sell online or retail? I have done my research online but still do not understand the basic processes. How much money will I need at the beginning? I would really appreciate any feedback you can provide. Thanks in advance!
Max, it's good you are thinking about all of these challenges. I can aswer your questions below as best as I can:
Do I buy from vegetable produce from the store or the farm?You should try to find a local produce purveyor that can deliver produce to you as needed. The purveyor purchases produce from the farmer than distributes it to businesses like yours.
I buy a commercial juicer and then bottle it myself straight into the bottle?Yes
Then get the bottle labelled and FDA label approved?You can get the labels approved ahead of time. Don't wait until after you make the juice.
Then distribute and sell online or retail?That is up to you. Selling retail requires a larger investment to open a store. Running a website and delivering locally is a good way to get started.
How much money will I need at the beginning?This depends on your business plan. You will need to purchase equipment, pay for a website, graphic design, and maybe 1 or more employees. So depending on how much you want to invest, the amount can vary. Bare minimum is probably about $25K for a juice delivery small business. Let me know if there's any other questions I can help you with.
Hello! Im currently in the process of starting my own cold press business ...if possible, are there options for refurbished ct7
I will have someone reach out to you to discuss. Thanks!
looking to start my own raw juice business is just purchased a home juicer the small ones do these work good for start ups? im going to try and sell to friends and family first and maybe start at a few health fairs. im just now gaining information so i may have a long ways to go.
I do not advise using a domestic / home juicer for a business. You will experience low efficiency and extreme frustration trying to run a business this way. Home juicers are not meant for commercial use, and will often break down and take you 5-10x the time to make your juice. Additionally, warranties on home juicers do not cover commercial use.
Hi Charlie, This is Lucy from Czech. I've just discovered your amazing CT7. I'm slowly startuping my own business. As everyone else, I began at home, juicing custom cleanses for friends and family of mine and it always has a great success. The thing is slow juicer is simply too slow and hourly price doesn't work for me very well because the final price is unreasonable high. We're currently missing spots for cold pressed juicery in Czech, especially in my town. There's literally none. Food revolution still doesn't hit Czech that much. Major people are really into money here and don't give a damn for any healthier options of diet. Anyway, I feel I just need to revolt to this. I would really like to start from the lower cost, with some small fully equipped spot – and understand that equipment is everything. Can u give me some guidance to this? I feel totally in love with CT7 but also afraid I'm not able to go along with price, also really love the food processor on you videos... any thoughts on this? Is there any like refurb machines on your store? How about international shipping? Thanks for your beautiful work. Luc
Hi Luc, thanks for the comment. First of all -- really happy to hear that you are gaining a following with your business. Good for you! I understand that the initial equipment investment can be a hurdle when just getting into the business. It's important though, to realize that trying to use domestic juicers like you mentioned above will cost you more in the long run. I will check our refurbished stock and reach out to you via email. Thanks!
Great post! I recently opened my juice bar in a location where there was no supply for the high demand. I'm already receiving great feedback and hope to grow enough to be able to use you cold press machines.
That's great Josselyn! The best place to open a juice is where there's a small supply of juice. I'm sure you'll do fine.
Thanks for this website. It's the best informed as regards starting the business, it's really encouraging and motivation. You have and are doing a great job. You are really good nature! I would love to start with the CT7 ( small scale ) but I have a problem with having to crush the fruits before the extraction. Is there an alternative to the food processor as this will add to my start up cost. Can any blender serve without compromising the vitamins/ quality of the fruits or veggies.
Betty, a blender doesn't work for this purpose. You could use a smaller food processor but it takes a long time to make juice then. I really recommend getting the proper equipment if you're going to be running a juice business, as your success depends on it!
Hi Charlie, First of all, thank you for your great website and insights into the coldpress industry. I am working for a fruit juice startup and consider to buy one of your machines in the future (hopefully). One question remains for me is regarding the coldpress machines and their shredders. Aren’t shredders heating up the fruits while cutting them in helf and hence destroying vitamins and nutrients? Isn’t a shredder in a coldpress machine contrary to the whole “coldpress argument” ? Thanks for your explanations
sebastian this is a common question and here's my answer: It’s not 100% true to say there is NO heat added. Of course there is a little heat from friction, but the produce passes through the grinder blade very quickly, and any added heat is not detectable. If you put cold produce in, you will get cold juice out. Compared to other juicers like centrifugal, that noticeably heat the juice due to the process.
Hello! I really like your equipment. But I'm interested in one detail. How fast does the shredder rotate? I mean, is there no additional oxidation during grinding (of course this is less than a centrifugal juicer, but when compared with a screw juicer)? Can put the auger in X1 or use pumping air, will it be more effective?
Hello Good Nature Team, I am in the process to launch my own beverage coldpress brand, but still struggle to find the right facility to start production. Would you know if by law I am allowed to produce my juices in juiceries or does it have to be produced "professionally" with big juice manufacturers? I intent to sell in small supermarkets. Are there any differences in terms of legal requirements, hygiene requirements, desinfection etc. between a big juice manufacturer and a restaurant/juicery ? Kind Regards
Sebastien, congrats on starting a juice company! You can legally make juice in any commercial kitchen, but if you want to distribute wholesale you will need to HPP the juice by sending it to an HPP tolling facility. Read more here: the truth about HPP
Hello, Just wondering if anybody else has ever experienced their juices get thicker after storing in the fridge. Particularly carrot based juices?
How long are you storing your juice for?
Hello We are quiz juice bar here in saudi We are planning to buy big machine for our upgrading We would like to know what is fit on our shop We have product 250ml,1000ml cold pressed juice Thanks
Have you looked into the X1 or CT7?
In regards to the delivery only model and shelf life only being about 4 days, what are your thoughts on frozen juice? Does the juice preserve for extended periods of time when frozen?
I haven't experimented to much with freezing juice, but I do know some juice freezes and thaws quite well like apple juice, but others may lose some qualities. I think the best approach is to make juice daily for the deliveries, then the customer is getting raw, fresh juice.
Hi my questuon is can i use 1machine to extract cold and hot juices for exa.ple coffee i duced drinks And if yes which machine would that be and whats the cost in cdn $
Yakub, I do not know of a machine that makes coffee and juice, since t hey are very different processes. If you wanted to add juice to coffee, you could do that, but you would make the coffee on a different machine.
Good day , I am planning to produce pomegranate juice and be pack in a tetra pack --i wonder how we i could make it and have it pass and make it to groceries --i wonder how i could assigned its expiry etc
Hello Luther, Nice to meet you. Pomegranate juice works great with our cold press machines, typically, most grocery stores require the juice to be HPP or pasteurized in some form or another. We can definitely get you set up with more info if you would like. If you can, email me (Aris@goodnature.com) how much juice you are looking to produce and I can give you some more info on what you might need to get started. Thanks
Nice breakdown.. I hope to open my own juicebar one day. 😉
Hi - I am struggling with my local health authority over dating raw, unpasteurized juice products. I make my juices using your X1 juicer/press. Are you able to help me get a professional who can assist me in shelf-life? Best, Brigid
Hello, We can definitely assist. You can email me your question about shelf life directly at aris@goodnature.com. Thanks
Simple and very useful blog. Thank you for sharing.
Is there a way to preserve juice?
Typically we recommend around a 4-day shelf life for raw unpasteurized juice depending on the ingredients in the blend, after this amount of time the color and flavor might start changing a little, If you wanted to go longer it would need some form of HPP and or approved by the local health department.
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