Starting your own smoothie business or fresh juice bar requires the same business acumen any other company needs to succeed in a competitive market. Yet, there is one key investment that will make a world of difference. A first time business owner would be remiss to not invest in quality smoothie bar equipment, specifically an excellent juicer.
Why Juicing Is It’s Own Thing In the Food Service Industry.
Smoothie bar equipment is an interesting mix. Sharp knives are important for the initial dicing, just as with most prep kitchens. That’s where the similarities end. Commercial juice machines are unique in food preparation in that their sole goal is to completely pulverize the food.
What’s the Deal With Juice Bars? Why People Love to Drink Their Vegetables.
Vegetables are rarely anyone’s favorite item, especially raw with no dipping sauce. Yet juicing changes all that. Sure, a glass of fresh juice may look like blended up grass. However, there is some skilled mixing when it comes to proportions of ingredients. Too much of one strong flavor can spoil a drink. This balancing is what makes raw juices a tasty treat for many people.
The very thing that makes raw vegetable juice palatable for many is the thing that makes it unappealing to do at home. Portioning out the correct balance of sweet, tangy, sour, and mild can be tricky without a cookbook. Most health-minded individuals would much rather someone else took care of it for them. The fact that smoothie bar equipment can be a pain to clean is another crucial point in determining why customers love raw juice.
How to Start a Juice Bar: First, Understand the Importance of Variety.
One interesting point to remember about offering juices is that while many raw juice drinks can appear bright green, the flavor profile can differer greatly. Additions or omissions of pineapple, dandelion greens, arugula, pear, or lime juice can create a wide variety of interesting drinks. Many of them will appear the same shade of green. Here’s why different flavors are not quite enough when it comes to fresh juices.
It is important to remember that there are more than just green juices in the smoothie bar recipe book. A rainbow of colors is more appealing than a list of five or six grass-green drinks. Beets, pumpkins, and squash are all possible additions that can add more interest to an otherwise plain menu. This has the added benefit of creating visual interest with the bar’s drinks. In other words the drinks become Instagram-worthy, which is always good for marketing.
Does the Type of Smoothie Bar Equipment Effect the Nutritional Content?
The way we process food matters. Less processed is generally regarded as ideal in nutritional terms. This goes for smoothie bar equipment as well. How? The method used to extract juice from the vegetable can result in more juice being extracted, or less. Some commercial juicer extractors are better than others, to put it simply.
The best commercial smoothie bar equipment will masticate the fruit. This just means it applies consistent pressure to the fruit until the juice is fully extracted. Efficiency is a top consideration when it comes to juicers, and in this there are two points to consider. How efficient is the machine at extracting all of a fruit’s juice, and how much yield does it produce consistently.
Americans in 2015 averaged about 6.6 gallons of juice per capita. Orange juice proved to be the juice people reached for the most often. This could change, however. With more raw juice bars popping up all the time, there is a good chance more Americans will reach for a green juice instead. To get there, juice bars need to start off with good equipment that reliably presses the produce efficiently and speedily.