7 Steps To Starting A Successful And Profitable Juicing or Smoothie Business

Last week Friday we had Aderonke Odumosu of Juicing To Profit on Instagram live and she gave us a step-by-step guide to kickstarting a juicing business. It was a very informative session and we decided to capture the points she mentioned for anyone who missed it. Also, think of these steps as your initial detailed business plan to help you kick start your Fruit or juicing business.

 

Here are the 7 steps to Starting a Juicing Business:

1. Setup the Business.

A juicing business is fairly inexpensive to begin. Just like any other business, it will need a name. Once you’ve settled on a name for your business, you should register the business with your government so you’re going into it legally. The cost of registration for a business name in Nigeria, for example, is about  N15,000. The next item to spend on would be a cold press juicer, for a start. This would set you back about N100,000. The rest can go into packaging, containers, and plastics e.t.c

On average, you should be able to start your juicing business with as little as N250,000 (Roughly $670) assuming that you intend to start the business from home saving you the cost of having to rent a space.

2. Design your Menu

Designing your menu is a very easy step that you can have a little fun with. Here are some tried and tested fruit combinations you can get started with. 

First, know that there are 5 main categories of ingredients that make up your Juicing Menu:

1. Sweet Fruits e.g  Orange, Apple, Pineapple
2. Acidic e.g Lime or Lemon.
3. Spices e.g  Tumeric, Ginger, Cayenne Pepper
4. Root Vegetables e.g Cucumber, Carrots, Beetroot
5. Greens e.g Spinach, Celery, Kelp.

Here are some suggested combinations to get started with:

1. Sweet Fruits + Spices: Any fruit from the sweet fruit category goes very well with any of the spices and can together form a menu item.
2. Sweet Fruits + Spices + Root Vegetables: Any fruit which classifies as a sweet fruit goes very well with any of the spices. You can also add an ingredient from the Root Vegetable category for a healthier option.
3. Root Vegetables + Sweet Fruits + Greens +  Acidic: Any fruit which classifies as a sweet fruit goes very well with the addition of a member of the root vegetable category, some green and an acidic like lime or lemon to give it a kick can form a menu item. You can combine Greens and Root Vegetables to come up with a really rich menu. Adding a fruit from the Sweet Fruit category would act as a sweetener and adding lime or lemon from the acidic category would give a nice kick to the recipe.

 

These are just some ideas on how to get started with your menu. Be sure to go ahead and try experimenting with your fruit and other ingredient combinations and see what you can come up with. There are no limits to how creative you can be with your recipes.

3. Get your Pricing Right

It is very important to get the unit economics for your business right from the beginning. Every ingredient in your recipe needs to add up to a price point without assumptions. Estimate the unit cost for the least measurement for all of the ingredients in your recipe. For example; the price of a scoop of watermelon can be estimated by counting the number of scoops that can be gotten from an entire watermelon and dividing the total cost of that watermelon by that number. After getting the unit costs of your ingredients, you should add your profit margin to get what the product will be priced. A healthy margin is from 50{f4398d4dbb4bd612786df53967ba59c0d9abf9f79d3c47e3baf226da3624040b}, depending on other costs you may incur. Therefore the formula for pricing becomes;

Product Price = The Unit Cost of Production + Profit Margin 

4. Make your Products Look good!

It’s very important that your product packaging is of good quality. People are first attracted by what they see and when your customers see that your product is packaged right, they are more likely to make a purchase, and if it tastes good, they will return to your business. As regards photography and digital content, It is advisable that you take your photos in natural light. Your social media pages are a great representation of the quality of your product, so it’s important to put in the effort in looking good after so much has been done to make your products taste good.

 

Aside from selling online, partnering with complementary businesses can be a great way to reach more people, especially in the early days when you have no space of your own. More on that in the next step.

5. Choose a Profitable Customer Segment & Revenue Model

Rather than trying to sell to individuals i.e Young adults and Adults, you may want to explore other customer segments that would be more profitable. See some examples below:

Children: Popsicles are a great way to package your menu such that it appeals to children. Partnering with schools to enable you to offer your products to the students during lunch or after school, would be a great way to start this off.

Hospitals/Health Centres: Partnership with health institutions is a great idea. The great thing about your business is that it is a healthy living choice, so the marketing opportunities are endless. People care about their health and care about what they’re putting into their bodies. People will be very willing to products that they’re assured will help them lead better and healthier lives. Products that they’re assured are beneficial to their body’s health. You would be juicing for health. Juicing for Health- This business strategy involves creating recipes that are required by people with specific health conditions or health goals as the case may be. For example; you could have clients who have health conditions that would require certain dietary needs for a period of time. You can design the menu to address these conditions and have a subscription pricing plan for the duration of the patient’s needs to recover.

If this customer segment appeals to you, then you should get a copy of the e-book below, authored by the coach for $8 ( N3000)

Other customer segments include customers at the  Gym/Yoga/Workout/Dance centres as well as those at corporate offices, and just generally places that are a constant part of people’s lifestyle. Partnering is a great way to get your business seen and also provide a constant source of customers for your business.

6. Find a Local Supplier

Another very important way to make money off juices is to sell exotic fruits. Finding the fruits that aren’t readily available on the market, buying them in bulk, and reselling them is a great way to make a reasonable profit from juicing and fruits. The Ijora market of Lagos, Nigeria is a great place to find fresh fruits for people who live in Lagos. The suppliers should also teach you the preservation methods for each fruit as you buy. More on preservation in the next step.

7. Learning Techniques for Preservation

Due to the perishable nature of your product, fruit preservation methods are something you need to pay a lot of attention to in order not to run into a loss that could cost you a lot of money. You need to find an effective method to keep your juices fresh and edible and also your raw materials. Each fruit has its own preservation method(s) 

Some general tips include keeping away from direct sunlight and as much as possible keeping the optimal temperature of the fruit constant.
For bananas, wrapping up the stem slows down the ripening process. Separating the unripe banana from the slightly ripe ones and also wrapping up the stem would preserve them for longer.

Apples should be kept cool for them to last longer.

 

Bonus Step: Record your Sales and Drive Repeat Sales

With your business started and growing in sales, you would soon need to keep track of the numbers and ensure your customers keep coming back. As your customer base increases, you will also need to know each and every one of them and set up a system that allows you to nurture and manage the relationships for long-lasting loyalty. This is where we (Loystar) comes in. We provide a solution that allows you to take care of your sales records, inventory, loyalty programs, e-invoice, e-receipt, accounting and payments right from your smartphone, tablet or computer; and if you sell online using social platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook or your own website, you can make use of the plugins and integration we provide to reach customers and sell to them where they are. Would you like to see how Loystar works? Feel free to book a 20 mins demo session here.

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As you grow your business, you can add healthy snack options to go with the juices so you can offer your customers a full meal whenever they choose to patronize your business. Customers generally like to get everything in one place.

We hope this guide has been informative to you who wants to start a juicing business. To get your Loystar account signup  Here.

Good luck!

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