Juice/smoothie bar

gags89

hey boardos!


I was recently thinking of adding my love of fruit smooties to my way of earning money and was thinking Id throw up my idea up one here and see what people thought!

I know 'Zumo' and 'Jump' smoothie bars are well established so was wondering if anyone on here is a franchisee of theirs...care to share experiences??


Also I was thinking could I just as easily think of a juice friendly bar name such as eh....'jungle boogie' or 'squish squash smoothies' (off the top of my head) and would it be just as good as from conducting my own research in shopping centres and Around Busy urban town centres its mainly the same tastes across the board (ie zumo isnt tastier than jump) its just customers are going for the healthy option and dont really like to eat fruit on their own and this seems to be a tastier option also near students it seems its either smoothies or coffee the 'cool' drink to have and so maybe a hangover cure smoothie could be very popular!


Then also, aimed maybe as Mickk as he's familiar with 'Raw Juice bars' primarily although any advice greatly appreciated, Whats your opinions on coupling fitness centres with juice bars? - healthy after workout snack and you can add supplements into the smoothie (ie vitamin boosts, slimming supplements, protein, creatine etc)...what do you think of that? I know david lloyd gym I think has a zumo in it...just looking for peoples views!



Then also, If a smoothie is approx €4 arent the margins quite high is your ingredients are very cheap and im guessing the highest costs would be rental of units??opinions??



cheers for any replies received and look forward to all y'all thoughts and suggestions!

betonit

for the name 'refresh'

antoinolachtnai

The biggest outgoing is actually the VAT. Work it out, the VAT makes the business a lot less attractive. (Your inputs, fruit, are zero rated, but your outputs are 21.5 percent.)

Zumo are shutting down on Dawson St. Personally, I would have thought that that should have been a good location.

Smoothies also suffer from being a morning product, from what I have seen.

It's also a bit seasonal. On a day like today, there's no problem selling them, but on a cold, damp day, what will the market be like?

gags89

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The biggest outgoing is actually the VAT. Work it out, the VAT makes the business a lot less attractive. (Your inputs, fruit, are zero rated, but your outputs are 21.5 percent.)
Hmmm I didnt know that, so when i buy fruit from mr fruitseller he doesnt charge me any VAT but when im selling my smoothies or juices on, theres a 21.5% charge??

Zumo are shutting down on Dawson St. Personally, I would have thought that that should have been a good location. I agree, I walked by it the other day, maybe it is all the competition on the street where people want to spend their lunch-time hour instead of stopping off, getting their smoothie and carrying along their merry way!

Smoothies also suffer from being a morning product, from what I have seen Thats a good point, it would do as breakfast, brunch, maybe even afternoon snack but having worked in deli's preparing food, Id say even rolls etc dont really shift anytime past 4/5

It's also a bit seasonal. On a day like today, there's no problem selling them, but on a cold, damp day, what will the market be like?

Would it work as a mobile business? ie pulling up beside beaches/mobile parks etc???

antoinolachtnai

People do it at all the various markets, the maritime festival, etc. It's a crowded enough marketplace I'd imagine, and there is a real risk of sparking off a price war (general note: starting price wars is not a good idea unless you are michael-o-leary-sure that you can win)

i suppose it would work ok, you would get some cash out of it. but it's not really a business to invest in then. You're not really building up any value.

But if you want to see what it's like to actually own and run a business it might be interesting. I would watch out for the usual health and safety issues, mind you.

suey71

A friend of mine opened a mobile smoothy business 2 years ago and lost his shirt. this fella has a degree in business and marketing and couldnt get it to work. He Blamed it on the [EMAIL="cr@ppy"]cr@ppy[/EMAIL] weather we had for the last couple of years. Be careful. Judging by the amount sold at Bloom last week and at the beach on monday, I'd recommend an ice cream van over a mobile smoothy biz. but this is also seasonal. but then again it is how Duncan Bannatine started off;). best of luck.

gags89

does anyone know of any shopping centres opening soon??

Mickk

gags89 wrote: »

Then also, aimed maybe as Mickk as he's familiar with 'Raw Juice bars' primarily although any advice greatly appreciated, Whats your opinions on coupling fitness centres with juice bars? - healthy after workout snack and you can add supplements into the smoothie (ie vitamin boosts, slimming supplements, protein, creatine etc)...what do you think of that? I know david lloyd gym I think has a zumo in it...just looking for peoples views!

??? I amn't familiar with Raw juice bars, never heard of them before! Funnily enough my very first attempted venture was a Jumo franchise when I saw the little Vodafone unit in the Stephens Green shopping centre right inside the door close down. I talked to the Zumo franchise (and probably naively told him which unit I was looking at) and the estate agents who deal with the centre didn't take me seriously and refused to deal with me while I had no references/previous landlords.umo opened int he same unit, I have heard since (don't know if it is true) that the owner of Zumo only owns 2 himself, the one in Stephens Green and the original in Jervis St... It left a really sour taste in my mouth but I was young and should have really pushed to get the unit.

It's an interesting point about the vat, I came up with an idea which I reckon would bypass the vat. How about opening a "Fruit bar" with a name along the lines of How You Like It Fruit Bar. The idea would be to have a salad bar type setup where customers pay for a cup half full of orange juice, they then add whatever fruit and extras they want and if they want to blend it themselves they can.

In terms of doing them in a fitness centre I would stay away. A busy busy gym has about 1200-1500 signins a day, a good shopping street/centre can have 50000-80000 shoppers a day! Also I would imagine at 4 euro a pop it's not actually a thing that people would buy day in/day out, if a gym goer is serious about having a smoothie every day they will buy frozen fruit and a blender. Atleast with a shopping street it's often people who only do it once a month and get themselves an impulse (supposedly healthy) treat.

gags89

Mickk wrote: »

??? I amn't familiar with Raw juice bars, never heard of them before! Funnily enough my very first attempted venture was a Jumo franchise when I saw the little Vodafone unit in the Stephens Green shopping centre right inside the door close down. I talked to the Zumo franchise (and probably naively told him which unit I was looking at) and the estate agents who deal with the centre didn't take me seriously and refused to deal with me while I had no references/previous landlords.umo opened int he same unit, I have heard since (don't know if it is true) that the owner of Zumo only owns 2 himself, the one in Stephens Green and the original in Jervis St... It left a really sour taste in my mouth but I was young and should have really pushed to get the unit.
aw sorry mickk just from reading your posts before you mentioned the 'raw' gym near enough to camden street and there was a raw juicebar in the front of her...i think!...my mistake!
It's an interesting point about the vat, I came up with an idea which I reckon would bypass the vat. How about opening a "Fruit bar" with a name along the lines of How You Like It Fruit Bar. The idea would be to have a salad bar type setup where customers pay for a cup half full of orange juice, they then add whatever fruit and extras they want and if they want to blend it themselves they can. thats genius! so you charge them the original plain yogurt then they pick up their fruit and pay for it and go to self service kinda like a coffee machiney thing and pop the fruit in and hey presto! what does anyone think would go well to sell with the whole 'healthy, fruity image' ....just regular sambos/bagels/rolls/paninis? would coffee be good too? I know this then makes the business out to be a kinda of bagel factory or a esquires coffee place but if i made the image younger, more colourful, energetic like in a studenty area whats the opinions on this???

In terms of doing them in a fitness centre I would stay away. A busy busy gym has about 1200-1500 signins a day, a good shopping street/centre can have 50000-80000 shoppers a day! Also I would imagine at 4 euro a pop it's not actually a thing that people would buy day in/day out, if a gym goer is serious about having a smoothie every day they will buy frozen fruit and a blender. Atleast with a shopping street it's often people who only do it once a month and get themselves an impulse (supposedly healthy) treat.

very good points, cheers mickk!

hedgehog33

The Juice/Smoothie places around Galway seem to be empty/closed down. However a new Milkshake bar/stand has opened here a few months ago and it seems to be doing really well. Every time I walk past it there is a queue (only place I've seen queues for a while). They have a menu with over a hundred flavours, and prices are reasonable which I guess is why they are doing well (and it is in a location with a lot of traffic). There's a thread about them on the Galway City forum with their menu etc, it might be worth a read.

Mickk

gags89 wrote: »

very good points, cheers mickk!

Oh sorry I didn't put two and two together, the lads in Raw Gym did have a coffee/juice/supplement shop out the front of their gym in the beginning. I told them not to bother, it would have to be open 16 hours a day (like the gym) and it would never pay them and would only confuse people. It's already closed down after about 5 months...

Mickk

hedgehog33 wrote: »

The Juice/Smoothie places around Galway seem to be empty/closed down. However a new Milkshake bar/stand has opened here a few months ago and it seems to be doing really well. Every time I walk past it there is a queue (only place I've seen queues for a while). They have a menu with over a hundred flavours, and prices are reasonable which I guess is why they are doing well (and it is in a location with a lot of traffic). There's a thread about them on the Galway City forum with their menu etc, it might be worth a read.

It's funny isn't it, pure fruit smoothies or natural frozen yogurt 21.5% vat, milkshakes full of sugar and fat 0% vat!

Mr.Boots

Mickk wrote: »

??? I amn't familiar with Raw juice bars, never heard of them before! Funnily enough my very first attempted venture was a Jumo franchise when I saw the little Vodafone unit in the Stephens Green shopping centre right inside the door close down. I talked to the Zumo franchise (and probably naively told him which unit I was looking at) and the estate agents who deal with the centre didn't take me seriously and refused to deal with me while I had no references/previous landlords.umo opened int he same unit, I have heard since (don't know if it is true) that the owner of Zumo only owns 2 himself, the one in Stephens Green and the original in Jervis St... It left a really sour taste in my mouth but I was young and should have really pushed to get the unit.

It's an interesting point about the vat, I came up with an idea which I reckon would bypass the vat. How about opening a "Fruit bar" with a name along the lines of How You Like It Fruit Bar. The idea would be to have a salad bar type setup where customers pay for a cup half full of orange juice, they then add whatever fruit and extras they want and if they want to blend it themselves they can.

In terms of doing them in a fitness centre I would stay away. A busy busy gym has about 1200-1500 signins a day, a good shopping street/centre can have 50000-80000 shoppers a day! Also I would imagine at 4 euro a pop it's not actually a thing that people would buy day in/day out, if a gym goer is serious about having a smoothie every day they will buy frozen fruit and a blender. Atleast with a shopping street it's often people who only do it once a month and get themselves an impulse (supposedly healthy) treat.

There is vat on oj and prepared fruit

Mickk

Mickk wrote: »

It's funny isn't it, pure fruit smoothies or natural frozen yogurt 21.5% vat, milkshakes full of sugar and fat 0% vat!

I'm feeling really slow today - can you explain to me why there is VAT on smoothies but no VAT on milkshakes ?

Also, your idea for bypassing the VAT, how would that bypass VAT ? I'm just confused, is it to do with whether it's mixed or not which means VAT is added ???

Really confused

Bandara

Fruit Juices come under the luxury items tag, milk does not

Thanks Hammertime.

Mickk

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm feeling really slow today - can you explain to me why there is VAT on smoothies but no VAT on milkshakes ?

Also, your idea for bypassing the VAT, how would that bypass VAT ? I'm just confused, is it to do with whether it's mixed or not which means VAT is added ???

Really confused

Sorry if it was a bit confusing, I am not the best at the old english... Basically my idea was to sell the ingredients of a smoothie unprocessed and then let the customer process it into a smoothie if they want. So say you had a deli style setup and you give the customer a cup half full of yoghurt, they then fill the rest of the cup with whatever fruit they want. You can sell this to them and not pay vat. If they then choose to blend it themselves (in a blender at the deli bar) that's fine and they have a smoothie.


In relation to the orange juice, I know that in the protein powders i sell the rate determining factor is the ingredient that makes up more than 50% of the product. Eg if a product is 51% protein and 49% creatine it's 0% rated and if it's 51% creatine and 49% protein it's liable for 21.5% vat. I would imagine that the orange juice would be the same, half a cup of orange juice and a load of vat 0% fruit should make the overall product vat 0%?

bored@workagain

i have quite a lot of experience in all ranges of juice and smoothies and own one currently i would have no bother tellin you anything you want to no.. just pm me anytime and my name is the greatest name ever!!!

jaffa20

How much would the startup costs be for a small mobile business like this be? I know it depends on the business but something a long the lines of an ice cream van or milk shake van, what would you be looking at?