Moving into a commercial juicer is a significant investment for any juice or drink business. Knowing when to make this leap can streamline your operations and boost your bottom line. Essentially, choosing the ideal juicer boils down to two critical factors: your juice production goal and the time required to meet it. In this guide, we’ll help you assess your current production capacity so you can choose the best commercial cold press juicer for your business.
Assess Your Juice Production Goal
One of the most important things to consider is your juice Production Goal. We’ll define your Production Goal as the combination of how much juice you’re currently selling and how much juice you’ll need to sell in order to meet your customer demands on a weekly basis.
The catch is, to find the most accurate Production Goal for your business, you’ll need to keep a detailed track record of your previous sales. These records will be the foundation for this assessment, as they’ll help you reach a consensus about your current production and, even more importantly, make an educated projection of what’s ahead in terms of your juice demand.
Investing in a commercial juicer is a big commitment! If you don’t have a good sales record or a solid production plan to reference, this is an indicator that you may not be ready for a commercial juicer.
You’ll know you’ve reached the right Production Goal when the amount of juice you’re aiming for minimizes waste during slow weeks without understocking your supply of juice during busy ones. This is particularly important because business growth happens when you have just enough to feed everybody without completely selling out before your next juicing session.
In fact, if you’re selling out constantly, this is a good sign that you need a commercial juicer to maximize revenue & get your juice into the hands of the people that crave it! Now, we’ll delve into the next piece of the puzzle that will help you choose the best commercial juicer.
Evaluate Your Juice Production Time
Once you’ve worked out the math and figured out your ideal Production Goal, answer this question: How much time do you need to juice in order to meet your weekly Production Goal?
This is where things get sticky! We all know that time costs money, especially in the juice business. Therefore, time is a crucial factor to consider in your juicing operations. For the sake of consistency, let’s call the time it takes to meet your weekly Production Goal your juice Production Time.
In general, we recommend small owner-operated juice businesses to juice 2 hours per day, 3 times a week, for a total of 6 hours of Production Time weekly. This ensures you have enough time to manufacture your drinks and market, sell, and manage all the other activities required to keep your business thriving. You can double that ideal production schedule to 4 hours per day, 3 times a week if your team has a designated juicer operator and assistant(s).
Overall, limiting your Production Time to about 12 hours per week, especially when you have a dedicated operator on the machine, is optimal for growing small juice businesses. Of course, this does vary when you consider different applications for juice production, but for this illustration, let’s use this figure as a general guideline. Keep in mind that this doesn’t include the time spent on bottling and finishing your product — just the juicing itself.
Need help with applying to different business models including larger team sizes? We’re here to help, connect with us here!
If you find yourself spending more than 12 hours a week juicing, even if you’re producing lower quantities, that’s a strong indicator that your current juicing setup is ready to go commercial.
Put it all together: Can Your Juicer Meet your Production Goal in the Ideal Production Time?
At this point, you should know exactly what your weekly Production Goal is and how much Production Time it takes you to meet that goal. Now, we’ll determine how you can use these metrics to figure out if it’s the right time to ramp up your juice production with a new commercial cold press juicer.
To put things into perspective, Juiced Rite commercial juicers produce anywhere between 100-800 12oz bottles of juice per hour (depending on the model and kinds of ingredients juiced). With the ideal Production Time, we’re talking about roughly 600-9600 12oz bottles of juice every week!
If these quantities align with your juice Production Goal and your ideal Production Time,
then you’re likely a great candidate for a commercial-grade standing juicer. Choosing to upgrade could really streamline your production and help meet customer demand more effectively.
However, if your Production Goal and Production Time are not yet to this scale, we recommend exploring smaller countertop juicers, as these will make your juicing processes easier as the demand for your juice grows. Either way, the best way to choose the best commercial cold press juicer for you comes down to the specific juicer’s capacity that you’re considering and your own Production Goal, keeping the time commitment in mind.
Choose the Ideal Commercial Juicer for Your Business
In summary, understanding your juice production needs, both in terms of quantity and time, is crucial in deciding whether it’s best to invest in commercial juicing equipment. If your production levels are high enough to justify an upgrade or if you’re spending too much time juicing, it might be time to take that next step.
As you weigh your options, remember that investing in the right equipment is an important step in growing your business and satisfying your customers. The right juice machine can pay for itself in a relatively short time, especially if it allows you to produce and sell more juice efficiently!
When you’re ready to take the plunge, our team will be ready to help you make the best choice for your unique situation. We work through this kind of information all the time and are more than happy to help you figure out the best path forward for your company. Contact us here for more help!