Juiced! Cold-Pressed Juicery Builds Hype and Buy-In for New Retail Markets

Since Groupon was founded in 2008, we’ve helped over a million merchants connect with communities through effective local business marketing campaigns. Recently we sat down with Jason Lannoch, founder and co-owner of Juiced! Cold-Pressed Juicery, to hear one such success story.

Founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2012, Juiced! Cold-Pressed Juicery makes raw juice blends that are 100% natural, nothing added and never heated. They pride themselves on cold-pressing their juice, which preserves more nutritional value and flavor than traditional juicing processes which generate heat.

The company has come a long way since its founding when it was just Jason and a food truck. Juiced! now sells its product in brick-and-mortar storefronts, ships it to customers throughout the continental US, and supplies it to retailers across the country. Jason shared with us how they’ve strategically used Groupon campaigns to open up these markets.

How Juiced! Used Groupon To Stay Fresh And Enter New Markets

What motivated you to start Juiced! Cold-Pressed Juicery?

I was previously a mental health therapist in Chicago, Baltimore, and New York, working 1-on-1 with adolescents. Many of my clients had prescriptions for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, antipsychotics, etc, but their psychiatrists didn’t talk to them much about nutrition and how it helps these drugs work better. These kids didn’t have any nutritional knowledge, they didn’t understand the body-mind connection, you know, “Healthy body, healthy mind.” I really believe that, and you can see the medical community is embracing it now, too.

So, when my wife and I moved back from Manhattan to Milwaukee in 2011, I was burnt out on my career and wanted a change, and we had noticed there aren’t many juice bars away from the coasts. My wife is a marathon runner, and I had been experimenting with this juicer I got as a gift. We were just running and juicing at home, developing recipes. That’s when we had our original idea, which was a mobile concept, so I found a food truck in Cleveland and brought it back to Milwaukee.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced when starting your business, and how have you overcome them?

On my first day with the food truck, I just parked by the lake and started selling there, and it was going great until a park ranger came along and said, “You know you’re not allowed to do that here, right?” I really didn’t know! But then I started selling juice mostly at farmer’s markets and food truck gatherings, and business picked up.

After the 2012 season, we found a storefront, got everything ready, and opened it in April of 2013. That’s when we switched to the cold-press process because it preserves the flavor and nutritional value better.

But, we wanted to be able to make the juice quicker, like healthy fast food, yet we were only making ten juices per hour. We had to find a partner, move into a new plant, and grow the business to the point where we could afford new equipment, which took a while.

Now we’re making thousands of juices per week, and there’s still room for that to dramatically increase. We’ve started selling at major retailers such as Costco and Walmart, we’re securing more distributors, and Groupon has added a lot of ecommerce to our business.

Who is your typical client, and why do they choose your products?

I’d say the typical customer is a health-conscious suburban mom, a lot of women. Partly that’s because our Groupon deal is specifically for juice cleanses, which are a big part of our business. So really it’s anyone who’s looking to start a lifestyle change, maybe use the juice cleanse as a way to kick off a new diet or workout regimen or something like that.

What does Groupon provide your business that you couldn’t do on your own?

It’s the benefit of the baked-in marketing they provide, the way they promote our online business. I’d say the majority of our online sales now are through Groupon. We’re getting the word out to thousands of customers who would be otherwise unreachable.

We were initially skeptical because of the cost structure, but it’s proven totally worthwhile. The Groupon deals expose people everywhere to our brand, including in places where we haven’t established ourselves yet. That brand recognition helps us prep those markets for when they eventually see us in stores. We can go to retailers we potentially want to partner with and show them that there’s already interest in our brand there.

We’ve even had customers ask when they’ll have our juice available in-store in their region. We get calls like that every other month from Texas, Maryland, Ohio, and so on. That’s our goal, is to be in grocery stores everywhere. The positive reviews are a great resource for making that happen, because it builds our online presence, SEO, etc.

What’s the best part of working with Groupon, and what would you tell another merchant who’s considering working with us?

The best part is the exposure. I’d say, if you invest in Groupon and you break even, or even if you lose a little money, the advertising and marketing and visibility and all that is great for a small business in its initial setup looking to grow. You get exposure to people who normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to even hear of you.