Member Article

Fazakerley-based start-up Just Juices grows by 300%

A pair of entrepreneurs from Merseyside, Tom Muir and Louise Disley, who started a juicing frenzy from their own kitchen in 2013, have grown their business by 300%

In less than two years, they have sold 13,000 bottles to customers all over the world and attracted investment worth £20,000.

The company was started with the aim of offering health conscious consumers healthy, great tasting juices, with a significantly reduced sugar content and has a celebrity following including Callum Best and Made in Chelsea’s Binky Felstead.

The inspiration for the business came from 28 year old Louise’s love for home juicing and the encouragement of family and friends who convinced her to share her great tasting recipes with the public.

Juicing has now moved on from the family kitchen to a much larger operation and premises in Fazakerley, employing three new staff members to help meet the growing demand.

They have also invested in the latest cold pressing technology, which will allow them to produce thousands of litres of cold pressed juices every week.

After securing a place on Liverpool’s first ever business accelerator programme Spark Up, last year, Just Juices has unveiled a new product range, new website and overhauled its branding to focus more on the customer and give them as much nutritional information about their products as possible.

Tom and Louise hope that the new focus will help increase sales by another 300% in the next five years, selling more juices online and within independent retailers, as well as securing buy-in from high street retailers and health and fitness centres.

The juices are already on sale at popular Liverpool venues including Salad Bowl and Bikram Yoga.

Tom said: “When we started Just Juices in 2013, neither of us had any experience of creating or even running our own business, but after recognising a gap in the market for 100% healthy juices we decided to take a risk and go for it.

“It seems to have paid off, as we’ve moved our business forward considerably over the past two years.

“At first it was hard as we both have full time jobs and we recently became parents for the first time, but we never lost faith in our idea.

“We knew we had lots of potential with Just Juices, but we didn’t know how to take this forward and grow the business, which is why we embarked on the Spark Up programme. “When we joined we had been trading for six months, but didn’t really have a full grasp of our market and consumer audience.

“Through the support and advice of Spark Up, we realised we needed to refocus our products and brand in order to identify and connect with our customers more clearly as well as compete against our competitors – which is why we launched our new juices last month.

“As a result visits to our website are increasing and we are securing more and more sales as well as interest from investors and suppliers.

“We are now on the path to becoming recognised as a major player in the food and drink industry.”

Full-time mum Louise said: “The UK juice market is full of products which either taste great but are packed full of sugar, or have little or no sugar yet lacking in taste.

“ Our range of drinks addresses this gap and offers healthy juices which are not only nutritional but taste great.

“We have been scientifically proven to have the lowest sugar levels compared to other fruit & veg juices.

“We use a process called cold pressing to create the juices, which involves tonnes of pressure and a hydraulic juicer to extract every drop of goodness out of the fruit and vegetables.

“The process applies no heat – hence the name cold pressed – which helps maintain three to five times more vitamins than juice from other machines.

“We pride ourselves on being one step ahead in the juicing industry and use HPP technology. “This allows us to naturally preserve the juices for longer without adding heat or additives, which enables us to sell our juices to customers all over the UK.

“Our drinks usually have a shelf life of 28 days.”

“Response to our new juices has been great so far and we are looking to develop our product range even further over the next 12 months, so watch this space for more Just Juices coming soon!”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .