What Equipment Do You Need To Start A Smoothie Business

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The Cold Press/slow Juicer

How To Start A Small Smoothie Business On The Internet – Review

This is an excellent juicer for processing fruit and vegetables together with leafy greens. It can even process wheatgrass not able to be done by a centrifugal juicer. The main benefit is getting a living juice that can be stored up to 48 hours while retaining its nutritional integrity. These juicers are perfect for the home juice delivery business.

The horizontal slow juicers need to have the food significantly prepped before being entered into the juicer. This isnt always necessary with the slightly faster vertical slow juicers.

Choose A Location For Your Juice Bar

As with any storefront, the location you choose can make or break your business. That kind of pressure can make choosing a location feel overwhelming. Where do you start? How do you know which areas will be most profitable? First, narrow down the geographic area by considering whats practical. When you open your juice bar business, youll be putting in long hours every day, so make sure you choose a location with a commute that is feasible.

Once youve narrowed down a geographic radius, analyze the different neighborhoods. Here are the different elements to consider when choosing a location:

  • Health-conscious consumers: Juice bar customers are typically health-conscious, so look for areas with successful yoga studios, gyms, spas, and other wellness businesses.
  • High-traffic areas: Youll want to put your business in front of as many people as possible, so look for downtown strips, main streets, and shopping malls that already have lots of patrons.
  • Sidewalks and foot traffic: Juice bars are great at attracting walk-in customers, especially during the summer months, so try to place your store in a pedestrian-friendly area.
  • Parking availability: Your store will also need to be accessible for customers that drive to your business, so make sure there is plenty of parking available.
  • Other juice bars: Dont open a juice bar too close to an existing juice business that will put you at a negative advantage right from the beginning.

Develop A Marketing Strategy For A Juice Bar

In most cases, people buy fresh juice spontaneously instead of planning in advance this makes it difficult to implement a complex marketing strategy. But there are a few things you can still do:

  • Come up with a catchy name.
  • Design a bright, attention-grabbing sign.
  • Create a logo that looks equally cool on employee uniforms, cups, and the counter.
  • Diversify the menu and create your own unique positions.
  • Create and promote an Instagram account.
  • Offer special deals and run these campaigns right in your POS system.

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How To Sell Fruit Salad

There is no one size-fits-all technique when it comes to fruit salad packaging and selling your fruit salad. You start in any way. You can start by telling your family and friends about fruit salad business and tell them to come to buy from you and you can also inform your church members.

This will drive traffic to your shop for some time. Asides this, there are other things you can do to promote and sell your fruit salad in Nigeria. Some of these are:

Idea : Storagepreparation And Serving

What Equipment Do You Need to Start a Home

Depending on whether you are making the smoothies from mixes or all natural ingredients from scratch, you may need a juicer, knives, dicers, corers, slicers, cutting boards, scoops, spoons, spatulas, measuring cups, storage containers, a refrigerated prep table, a walk-in refrigerator/freezer, as well as smaller refrigerators in the preparation area for easy access. Cups and spoons will come in handy for serving the smoothies as well.

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Place The Checkout Counter

A well-placed checkout counter will open up your floor space and allow for lines and waiting areas that dont interfere with seated customers. Most juice bars find success by having seating areas toward the front of the store with the counter for ordering and payments toward the back. In traditional retail store layouts, the inside right wall is your power wall or display.

With a juice bar, the power wall is your menu. The left side of the store, which typically gets the least amount of foot traffic and visual attention from customers, is a great spot for customer seating.

If you enter through the main entrance door, youll find that to your left are your lowest ticket zone: the seats and tables. Then right down the middle and just to your right is where you line up to place your order . Starbucks have this down to a science. While their layouts do have variations, the basic formula of slowest, to medium speed, to fastest laid out from left to right is the reason why many of their stores pull in about 80% of their gross sales from drive-thrus.

Thalia Toha, brand and business strategist, Thalia Toha Group

Quality Products: Smoothie Purees

The modern customer is an ingredient savvy individual. Theyve heard all of the buzzwords: No HFCS, fat-free, gluten free, low calorie, no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, soy free- you name it. And you can bet that they consume products based on at least one of these claims. The food standards of consumers today are much higher than they were even a few years ago. When it comes to smoothies, the modern customer is concerned about sugar content, protein, added supplements and more. They want their smoothie to taste great and natural at the same time.

As a smoothie bar owner, youll find that its tough to find a product that fits these requirements and still makes you a healthy profit. Many of our competitors offer a product just as healthy as ours but it requires refrigeration which, frankly, is a pain in the butt and produces a lot of waste for you. And then other competitors have a completely shelf stable product but it is packed with artificial yuck that you cant brag about. We are proud to say that our products fit the bill when it comes to consumer satisfaction and profitability. Check out the nutritional info here for yourself.

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Cup Lid And Straw Organizers

Keeping cups, lids, and straws organized can be a challenge, but an organizer can help you reduce clutter and dispense these items in a more sanitary way. Plus, having cups and lids available in your serving area lets customers who are in a rush serve themselves from one of your airpots, pay, and be on their way.

How And When To Build A Team

How to Start a Juice Bar Smoothie Shop Business – Let’s Learn Below!

Owners will generally need to hire at least a few team members immediately, even if theyre operating out of a smaller location. Most smoothie bars are open 7 days a week from mid-morning until evening, so its necessary to have several people trained and ready to handle the shifts.

Next Steps

Check out our How to Start a Business page.

Sign up at the Business Center to access useful tools for your business.

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What Are Some Insider Tips For Jump Starting A Smoothie Business

You may want to consider starting off at a smaller location to get a sense of who is interested in your product. A single kiosk at a mall, for example, may give you the exposure you need without the exorbitant bills of a larger space.

The best way to get started is to do as much research as possible about your competitors, and then use those insights to apply whats working to your business. You’ll also want to improve upon anything that your competitors could be doing better. This can be anything from marketing strategies to flavors to customer service. Look for local or time-specific trends that you might be able to capitalize on. For example, tempting the new year’s resolution crowd with a promise of trimming their waistlines.

Key Features Of Smoothie And Juice Business Plan

There are various facets of a business that cannot be understood in a simple way unless you take the pain of going into the details. Some aspects of business though they may not be very critical at prima facie but do impact your business.

All such aspects need to be examined and understood in detail while you are writing your business plan. Some of the key features that should be given special importance are given below.

  • Learning the Business from Inside and Outside
  • Through Research of the Market and Feasibility Study
  • Ask yourself some Questions
  • Summary and Future Prospects

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Choose The Best Legal Structure For Your Juice Bar

Choosing a legal structure for your business is important because it determines how you will collect and report taxes, how you will get paid from your business, and your level of personal liability. There are many types of legal structures, but the two most commonly found in small businesses such as juice bars are sole proprietorships and limited liability companies .

Sole Proprietorships are the default legal structure your business will fall under if you dont register for an LLC. Sole proprietorships lump together your personal and business finances, which means your business income is considered personal income. However, it also means that if anything goes wrong your personal assets, such as your house and car, could be at risk. Some retail business owners opt for a sole proprietorship, but this legal structure is mainly used by freelancers and consultants.

LLCs are the most popular legal structure for small retail and restaurant businesses because it separates your business assets from your personal assets and provides some degree of personal protection in the case of bankruptcy. From a tax perspective, LLCs are similar to sole proprietorships.

Offer A Loyalty Program

What Do You Need To Start A Business

Many POS systems, such as Lightspeed, offer a loyalty program feature. Consider adding this to your store to help drive repeat visits and repeat sales. Traditional punch-card loyalty programs can work, but digital loyalty programs allow you to track customer usage and engagement and send messages to customers about rewards or promotions.

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Signage & Promotional Items

Again, we recommend professionally designed signage and promotional items. We are unique in that we offer posters, table tents, coupons and more as well as ongoing new promotional materials so that your signage always stays fresh. Additional marketing boosts sales and increases your brand value to the customer. Every smoothie bar should have a large form of marketing like outdoor signage, banners or posters. We also recommend countertop posters or table tents. Finally, every smoothie bar should have items that customers can take with them. This can be a take-home menu, loyalty cards or limited time coupons.

Register For Business Licenses And Permits

Because a smoothie business involves handling food, you will also need to complete safe food handling training and earn proper licensure or certification, as required by your state. There are also a number of regulations that will need to be followed by your local health department in addition to regular inspections.

Your smoothie business will also need to obtain general local, state, and federal business registrations such as a sales tax permit, Employer Identification Number, and Occupancy Permit.

Related: Common business licenses, permits, and registrations by state

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Other Supplies And Equipment

Much goes into maintaining the fresh ingredients smoothies are known for. Of course, you’ll need refrigerators to keep fresh produce crisp and nutrient rich. Undercounter refrigerators and refrigerated prep tables will keep ingredients within arm’s reach when dealing with customers at the counter. Freezers will help when you want to make coconut ice cubes or add frozen fruit in place of some or all your ice.

A juicer will enable you to include fresh-squeezed juice â an addition that many of your clients will appreciate. An abundant supply of fruit and vegetable tools, such as fruit and vegetable slicers, apple and pineapple corers, and table-mount dicers, will make the constant work of producing smoothies less of a chore for your staff.

Storage bins and shelving will keep your ingredients organized and contaminant free, while utility carts make restocking easy.

Even if you opt for disposable serving and tableware, you’ll still need dishwashers and sinks to prepare and serve your blended treats. If you’ve decided to go with a food truck or kiosk, blender stations help conserve valuable counter space.

You may also want to stock some of the following items:

Starting Your Own Smoothie/juice Bar

Start Your Own NutriBlendz smoothie bar business $495

Many a times when we visit such shops we often get intrigued at their success and try to calculate how much money they mint every day from these businesses. One part of our mind often entertains this idea of starting ones own business but such businesses cannot be opened merely by fascinating thoughts.

In order to open your own business it is important that you not only look at the fascinating side of successful earnings but also at the hard work and the planning that is required to open such business.

Only when you are convinced that this business is for you and you can make an impact in the market through your business then you must proceed ahead. To proceed ahead is to plan about your business thoroughly.

The first step that you must take is to make a business plan for your smoothie business. This plan should be thoroughly expresses and extensively explained in order to tough all necessary points.

Below are the key points that should be explained and researched in detail. These points form the basic structure of your business plan and that will guide you towards the inception and success of your business.

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Search For A Suitable Location

Do you the location of a business outlet has a lot to do with the success of that business? This is why you need to pay ample attention to where you’ll be selling your smoothie. When securing a location for the business, you have to consider different factors like the exposure, neatness, accessibility for customers, space and many more. Make sure its neat and entertaining because some people might want to have their smoothie right at the point of sale.

Juice Bar Start Up Costs:

Multifunctional juicer

Total

$11,50020,000

You might consider the cost of opening a juice bar to be comparatively low. However, you should remember that life is full of surprises and some unexpected expenses may occur. Therefore, it’s a good idea to have up to thirty percent more money to cover them.

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The Health Department Requirements In Your Location

Health departments in some communities make some equipment compulsory for restaurants, bars, and food-related businesses. For instance, some health departments require separate sinks for the preparation of produce and hand washing.

So Id say you need to make the necessary inquiries and learn all of the local laws before making your list of equipment.

Resources To Help Women In Business

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There are many resources out there specifically for women entrepreneurs. Weve gathered necessary and useful information to help you succeed both professionally and personally:

  • Funding
  • Guides
  • Support

If youre a woman looking for some guidance in entrepreneurship, check out this great new series Women in Business created by the women of our partner Startup Savant.

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Use Your Local Chamber Of Commerce

Sign up for your local Chamber of Commerce. They have plenty of experience with grand openings, and will help you plan yours. In addition to sharing tips and best practices, the Chamber of Commerce also has lots of connections in the community and a vast network of other business owners. They will likely help you advertise the event, and even recruit a few other local businesses to attend and show support.

Some Chamber of Commerce chapters also have agreements with local papers or local elected officials on having them attend business openings. Having your event documented in the local newspaper is a great way to boost visibility. Really, there is no downside to contacting your towns Chamber of Commerce and working with them to plan your event.

Through Research Of The Market And Feasibility Study

While working as an employee you will gain the understanding of how to start and run such business while your research over the smoothie market will help you understand the market.

Any such business is spread over a cluster that can be identified as regional, state and country level. United States has a market of $2 billion employing more than 36000 people.

You must research the market in all the clusters to understand how the market really works. When the is the peak season of the market, how preferences for juices change with change in season, what impact locations make, who are your target market, etc.

Feasibility study is a similar concept but it goes much deeper than a normal research. This method uses various scientific methods which is generally used by professionals. So if you want to can hire an expert to do a feasibility analysis of your business.

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Using A Commissary Kitchen

If you are looking for a way to save on the initial investment of a commercial kitchen, check around your area for shared kitchens that allow you to rent the space by the hour. These commissary kitchens are used by many food and beverage startups looking to use a commercial kitchen without owning the space themselves. These kitchens usually have sinks, counters, and refrigeration space. You would most likely still need to purchase the juice press and any specialty equipment. Some kitchens will allow you to store the equipment in the space even when youre not using it. The terms and pricing vary a lot by location and business, so you will need to do your own research in your area.

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