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Monday, July 27, 1998

Stop and taste the juice

TREND: Smoothies and blended juices are carving themselves a lucrative niche as a healthy alternative drink

By Pauline Vu

Daily Bruin Contributor

When Susan Jespersen opened the first ever Juice Stop store in a small city in Orange County, she had humble dreams of expansion: perhaps another three or four stores in a couple years.

That was 1993. In the five years that have passed, Juice Stop has built itself into a franchise of over 100 stores in 15 states.

Just two months ago, another Juice Stop opened in Westwood.

"I saw the need for a juice bar and thought it looked like a fun business to go into," said Jespersen, president of Juice Stop (California), "But I never dreamed the company would grow so large."

Other people also saw this need for a juice market. Many people approached Jespersen wanting to get involved, and the Juice Stop franchise kept growing.

Today, it serves hundreds of thousands of people on both coasts of the United States.

Juice Stop isn't an isolated success story, though. Juice bars all over are experiencing growing business because they've become so trendy.

UCLA opened its own juice bar in 1994 with the opening of Tropix, a restaurant that sells smoothies in Ackerman Union.

At that time, an extensive market research study was performed for UCLA food services to find out what products students wanted that weren't already available to them.

"We identified a juice bar as something the campus wanted that we were not providing," said Pat Eastman, executive director of ASUCLA.

"Juice bars are always a healthy alternative to other places," said Kristen Stancik, a second-year English student and Orange County resident.

"Before Juice Stop opened, there wasn't much (in Orange County) except Taco Bell and Carl's Jr.," Stancik said.

Stancik also noted that when Juice Stop opened, it immediately became the trendy place to be.

"It was cool for high school students to go there, like after a workout for athletes. Getting a smoothie is the 'in' thing to do," she said.

Besides blended juices, another key product of juice bars are smoothies, which are blended juice concoctions mixed with frozen yogurt or bananas and ice to give the drink a thicker texture.

Smoothies, in fact, seem to be more popular than blended juices.

"Their greatest appeal is that they're a healthy alternative to a meal," said Bob Glembine, manager of Hansen's Juice Creations in Westwood, which celebrates its one-year anniversary next month.

"After people work out at a gym they'll come and buy a smoothie. Business people who want lighter lunches that can still fill you up will buy a smoothie," he added.

Customers get their choice of two additives, or nutritional enhancers which help replenish the body with energy.

These additives range from common vitamins, like protein, to less common ones such as spirulina, wheat germ or ginseng, and these are mixed into the smoothie.

In addition, fresh smoothies bear the healthiness of fruits and vegetables, which provide carbohydrates and are good sources of protein and potassium. Other benefits include less fat, cholesterol, calories and sodium.

Meriam Azusada, who works at the recently opened Hollywood Smoothy's in Los Angeles, has found that smoothies succeed in energizing her.

"Instead of coffee, I'll have a smoothie for a power boost," she said.

With such valid reasons to embrace the smoothie as a drink full of vitamins, a meal replacement and a stimulant all rolled into one, it is easy to forget another reason for their popularity.

"They just taste good," Azusada said simply. "They remind me of a shake, only much better."

Proof of this lies in where the smoothie revolution is heading now.

Restaurants such as TGI Friday's and Claim Jumper have added smoothies to their menu for a more attractive variety of drinks.

Baskin Robbins, the second largest frozen yogurt retailer in the nation, also expanded its menu over a year ago to include smoothies as well.

Smoothies are also beginning to find themselves in supermarkets.

Hansen's has long sold "ready-to-drink" bottled smoothies, although Glembine admitted that those made at Hansen's Juice Creations "are technically a little better" because of their freshness.

Juice bars have become one of the hot new industries of the '90s, according to Dan Titus, director of the Juice Gallery, a research and consulting business.

A successful juice bar can average $1,500 per day in sales, he said.

As of May 1997, total juice bar sales reached over $300 million, he added.

The juice bar concept is not entirely new, however.

The Hansen company has been making juice blends at people's request since 1935, Glembine said.

Juice bars have been in existence since the '70s, according to Jespersen.

However, it was only in the '90s that the juice bar concept took off, and though it spread quickly throughout the United States, the trend was born in California, she added.

With over 200 stores, the Golden State easily has more juice bars than any other state in the US, Titus said.

Will the juice bar eventually die out as a passing fad, succumbing to the same fate as the frozen yogurt stores of the '80s?

Both Jespersen and Glembine agreed that juice bars and smoothies are definitely not simply a fad.

"Smoothies appeal to the masses. They're good and healthy, as people are much more conscientious about what they put in their bodies today, and fast. There is a need for convenience," Jespersen said.

"America is moving faster and there seems to be less time to eat full meals," Glembine added, "The '90s has taken on a new health consciousness and people are looking for more ways to be healthy."

It looks like the smoothie, an oxymoron of healthy fast food, arrived at just the right time.

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