Juice Press

History

Juice Press was founded by Marcus Antebi with the opening of its first location in Manhattan's East Village in April 2010. A second location was opened in New York City in June 2011. Antebi has said he started the company because there were no good fresh juice products available.

In February 2012, New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira and Marquis Jet founder Kenny Dichter purchased stakes in Juice Press. The previous year, Antebi had worked with Teixeira on an off-season program that helped him lose 15 pounds.

In 2013, hedge fund owner Michael Karsch of Karsch Capital Management invested in Juice Press, prior to its series A round of financing. Karsch is the chairman of the board of directors of Juice Press. By early 2013, Antebi, Dichter and Karsch raised $7 million in venture capital from investors including Home Depot founder Kenneth Langone and hedge fund manager Stan Druckenmiller. This helped the company rapidly expand in the Northeast, as it opened 26 new locations in five years and grew from a valuation of $15 million in 2013 to $100 million in 2015. As of August 2016, there are 54 Juice Press locations in the Northeast.

In May 2014, Juice Press moved its production facility to Long Island City in Queens, New York. It occupies a 25,000 square-foot kitchen, with 200 employees producing 100 different items a day, including 15,000 bottles of non-pasteurized juices and smoothies.

In April 2016, Juice Press and Equinox Fitness announced a partnership where Juice Press would take over the food and beverage operations of most Equinox-operated retail stores within their clubs in five states.

In August 2016, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson announced that he had invested in Juice Press and would be bringing the chain to the West Coast, with a flagship shop in Seattle set to open in early 2017.

Products

Juice Press is best known for its cold-pressed juice, which is made by pressing fruits and vegetables under high pressure until juice trickles out. This is a more time-consuming and labor-intensive process, using more fruits and vegetables, than a blade-driven method. A 16-ounce bottle of juice can contain between 3 and 6 pounds of produce. From midnight to 9 am every morning, a combination of Norwalk cold press machines and Goodnature machines pulverize and press the next day's inventory of juice, so that all juices are fresh for that day. The Norwalk Hydraulic Press was designed by early juicing and raw food advocate Dr. Norman W. Walker in 1934, to extract the nutrient-rich liquid from fruits and vegetables. The company avoids high-pressure processing (HPP), so that each bottle of fresh juice has a shelf life of two to four days, shorter than juices made using HPP, which can remain on the shelf for more than three weeks.

The company also sells fresh almond milk and coconut water-based smoothies, açai bowls, an assortment of vegan salads, sandwiches, soups, puddings and raw chocolates, as well as liquid cleanse programs, such as its three-day all-liquid cleanse system, with six juices made specifically to target the immune system. Some locations offer a full dine-in menu of items including salads, soups and vegan desserts, while others have more of a to-go focus, offering smoothies, bottled juices and to-go food.

In June 2014, Juice Press began selling a probiotic supplement called ProViotic, containing a bacterium extracted from a Bulgarian flower traditionally used as a starter culture for making yogurt in Europe which helps the immune system. It is used as a "booster" in several raw juices and also comes in capsule form.

In 2016 Juice Press launched Water + Rose, a natural rose water distilled from Bulgarian roses. Other drinks include Pink Punk, a mixture of beets and strawberries; The Remedy, a turmeric tonic; and Green Giant, which contains cucumber, celery, parsley, kale, dandelion, Swiss chard, lemon and ginger.

Locations

Juice Press has 54 locations in the following US states:

Marketing

The company typically uses guerilla marketing tactics, with slogans including "Assertive Women Who Drink Juice Are Fucking Sexy".

Examples of celebrities who have been in the media with Juice Press products include fashion designers Cynthia Rowley, Alexander Wang and Marc Jacobs; models Gigi Hadid, Christy Turlington, Karlie Kloss and Miranda Kerr; actresses Kate Hudson and Renee Zellweger; musician Usher; NFL quarterback Tom Brady; and Major League Baseball players Mark Teixeira, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Chase Utley.