Juice chain brands expand customer base with meals, driving higher consumption frequency

Editor's note:This article is the third in a series of reports on juice chain brands. The first article focused on various brands'aggressive expansion plans, and the second explored how juice chainsimprove per-store profitability。

When Landon Eckles co-founded Clean Juice with his wife in 2015, the menu was primarily juices, smoothies, and acai bowls. Today, that menu has expanded significantly. To reach a broader consumer base, the company realized it needed to add meal options. Before the pandemic, the brand introduced toast products, including avocado toast, almond butter toast, and peanut butter toast, which performed well in the market, Eckles said. After the pandemic, the company further expanded its food menu to include chicken wraps, salads, and sandwiches.

The two co-founders were initially cautious about menu expansion because they had never introduced meat and cheese in their stores. Clean Juice typically tests new products in one or two stores first, then conducts multi-store pilots in markets such as Charlotte (where headquarters is located) to evaluate their performance in different regions.

"I think people are increasingly focused on health and wellness," Eckles said. "Twenty or thirty years ago, the prevailing mindset in American society was to work hard, grab a quick fast-food meal, and get back to work. I think that mindset has fundamentally shifted."

In recent years, juice chains such as Beyond Juicery, Main Squeeze, Joe & The Juice, and Juice it Up have also expanded their menus to attract a wider audience and create more consumption occasions for customers.

"We've not only achieved sales growth, but also attracted new customer segments—people who may not have visited before because they didn't want a juice or smoothie, but wanted something different yet equally healthy," Eckles added.

Revamping kitchens to accommodate new recipes

Main Squeeze is fully upgrading its bowl toppings to enhance competitiveness, offering higher quality and cleaner ingredients. Additionally, Main Squeeze is experimenting with reducing its 16-ounce juice bottles to 12 ounces to lower entry-level menu prices, said CEO Thomas Nieto. The brand has been offering the smaller bottles at $7.50 in four stores in Mississippi and Florida, and believes this will increase customer visit frequency. The brand currently offers 12-ounce and 24-ounce smoothies and is testing a 16-ounce size.

The biggest change for the brand comes from the introduction of meals. Main Squeeze will launch a protein product line in the first quarter, with a menu including protein bowls, hearty wraps, and vegan nachos. Nieto said vegan products began rolling out in January, with more stores to be fully stocked by March, and vegan nachos are currently sold in nine stores. Additionally, the brand offers a plant-based breakfast sandwich (available in original, maple, and spicy flavors), which has been available in 18 stores as of February; the product was first introduced in 2021.

To accommodate these new items, the brand has added ovens and commercial-grade air fryers to its kitchens, but equipment upgrades at existing stores have been slow, mainly due to high equipment costs—for example, an oven costs $6,500. The three protein products don't require high-speed ovens, but the breakfast sandwich typically does. However, all new stores are already equipped with the new ovens.

"(Fresh meals) will be a major focus for us," Nieto said. "But this is just our starting point."

Creating more consumption occasions

Joe & The Juice's menu originally focused on juices and shakes, but the company quickly realized that customers typically purchased juice only once a day, said global brand director Kasper Garnell. Therefore, the brand needed other products like coffee to increase consumption frequency throughout the day. Although 95% of Joe & The Juice's menu is consistent globally, Garnell noted that matcha (added to the menu in 2022) performs exceptionally well in the U.S. market, with sales far higher than in other regions.

The brand launched acai breakfast bowls in 2021 in response to customer demand. Garnell said offering more breakfast options encourages customers to visit before the peak hours of 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. In February, Joe & The Juice strengthened its breakfast menu with anEggcado breakfast sandwich, which includes cage-free eggs, avocado, tomato, spinach, and the brand's signature spicy sauce. Additionally, the brand added the Slab breakfast sandwich and the Eggcado breakfast bowl.

"The Eggcado breakfast sandwich is our latest attempt to reinvent the breakfast experience, offering customers a delicious and nutritious option," Garnell said in a statement. "We believe breakfast should be a vibrant experience that sets the tone for a great day. With the Eggcado sandwich, we aim to provide a morning option that aligns with our brand philosophy and commitment to quality."

Joe & The Juice has also collaborated with celebrities on co-branded products. In the summer, the brand partnered with dating expert and media personality Serina Kerrigan to launch a shake. The "For the Plot" shake far exceeded sales expectations, becoming one of the brand's best-selling limited-time offerings to date. Garnell said the collaboration exceeded the company's expectations and was "overall very successful." It was also the first time Joe & The Juice fully committed to an omnichannel marketing campaign, including social media activations, media outreach through a PR agency, out-of-home billboards, and even street graffiti in New York City.

Beyond Juicery has offered meals since its founding in 2005, but the menu has evolved as the brand has grown. Although Beyond Juicery is known for its raw juice bar and smoothies, the brand aims to increase consumption frequency through meals, said integration lead William Parsons. Over the past few years, its menu has expanded to include wraps and an acai bowl called the "Cosmic Dream Bowl."

"As more concepts emerge and competition intensifies... I see it as a positive signal because it creates more opportunities for us to maximize the use of new products," Parsons said.

Attracting a broader audience

Beyond Juicery has been seeking a balance between "perceived healthiness," "truly healthy," and "indulgence," Parsons said. The brand also focuses on highlighting the health benefits of certain ingredients. For example, the blue sorbet in its mango passionfruit bowl is made fromspirulina—spirulina, derived from blue-green algae, is a nutrient-rich antioxidant that helps lower cholesterol.

The brand's limited-time offerings are typically seasonal, with four to five LTOs launched each year, Parsons said. Last summer, the brand introduced a Southwest chicken caesar wrap and an outdoor salad. Winter products lean more toward indulgence because people's habits change during the holidays and they crave sweets. For example, last winter, a cookie butter smoothie bowl was introduced.

Beyond Juicery sends surveys to customers, and Parsons' team also visits stores to better understand customer preferences. "We listen to our customers and also take time to research and understand: What do customers want? Who are our customers?" Parsons said.

Headquarters listens to franchisee feedback and meets quarterly with the franchisee advisory council to discuss customer trends. "At our scale, being able to pivot quickly while maintaining scalability—I think that's a major advantage for us," Parsons added.

Nekter has launched several menu items to cater to its growing customer base. For example, the brand innovated on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, introducing a version with chia seeds and organic peanut butter, said co-founder and CEO Steve Schulze. "This is essentially about reaching a broader audience than the traditional juice consumer," he said.

Nekter expects to further expand its food menu, with work already underway for a year. Schulze said that with the addition of meals, Nekter will become more like a fast-casual restaurant. The company currently has several grab-and-go items and is testing meal performance in stores. Over the next 12 months, the brand will aggressively introduce more meals with more formal launches.

Schulze said Nekter completed multiple tests in 2023 and will continue adding products in 2024. The brand has also observed growth in sales of snacks and grab-and-go items.

Nekter has also partnered with well-known brands on co-branded limited-time offerings. Last spring, the brandcollaborated with Too Faced Cosmeticsto launch a pink smoothie with ingredients including dragon fruit, strawberries, pineapple, dates, hemp seeds, agave, and Nekter's homemade cashew milk.

In the summer,Nekter partnered with Nintendoto create a product using its plant-based, dairy-free ice cream to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mario Kart. The collaboration helped the brand reach a broader audience and increased brand awareness in target markets. Sales during the collaboration increased 65% compared to earlier similar frozen product promotions.

Juice it Up is exploring ways to incorporate elements of its raw juice bar into other parts of the menu, said president and CEO Susan Taylor. "Our platform is built on smoothies, juices, and bowls," she said. "We're seeing growing demand for plant-based products in other segments as well."

Juice it Up's R&D director Noah Burgess has developed a one-year strategic plan to test new products based on trends and insights. "We test and evaluate within the same time frame as limited-time offerings to see how products perform," Taylor said. If there's customer demand, the brand will consider rolling products out system-wide within the next year; if it determines a product is two years ahead of current trends, it will hold off on launching.

A richer menu also helps support overall growth for juice chains. "Doing only juice is challenging because you limit yourself to the consumer segment that only wants juice," Eckles said. "We've found that we need to serve that customer well while also appealing to the broader mass market."