why Calgary cold-pressed juicery inks deal with Starbucks

335 Hits D vijayakumar Dec 12, 2021, 7:28 PM

why Calgary cold-pressed juicery inks deal with Starbucks

Well Juicery has an expanding selection of products available at grocery stores and other retail outlets throughout Canada. Their products are all organic and free from preservatives or additives. They are just juiced fruits and vegetables. Cold pressing is a form of juicing that uses thousands of pounds of force to extract every drop and nutrient from the fruit or vegetable. All that’s left is pulp. A centrifugal juicer, conversely, heats up the fruit or vegetable through friction, resulting in enzyme and nutrient loss. Starbucks has chosen three options from Well’s Cold Pressed Juice line: Be Well (beets, apples and orange carrots), Well OJ (oranges) and Well Greens (leafy greens, apples, lemons and ginger). “We are not only proud to offer our customers new ready to drink bottled juices for when they’re on the go, but a product that is 100 per cent Canadian made,” said Starbucks Canada in an email statement. Tumbach said this agreement will make their product more accessible and affordable to more Canadians. This is just the latest advancement for the juice baron, who co-founded the company with fellow Calgarian Zack Lister in 2014. They both discovered juicing in search of food options to help deal with family health issues. Lister moved on from Well Juicery at the end of 2017. While Tumbach would not discuss exact numbers, he said the business has doubled in size year-over-year for the last seven years, both in revenue and volume sales. Not all of what Well Juicery produces out of its Calgary and Toronto plants has their branding on the bottle. They have developed a number of products for other companies, which has been a key part of their business since the beginning. “Throughout the years we have really focused on a big-box, wholesale distribution model, and that really started early on in our lifecycle,” said Tumbach, noting Calgary Co-op was their first key inclusion. “We really avoided boutique retail early on.” Well has recently expanded beyond the juice scene and has dove into superfood alcoholic beverages with three different vodka cooler flavours — charcoal, hibiscus lemonade, and green tea. The goal is to fill a void in a sector by offering a healthier version of a cooler design to compete with the likes of White Claw and Nutrl. Well is bringing the same principles to the table that have been successful with their juices, all-natural and preservative- and chemical-free. “That’s a floodgate-type scenario,” said Tumbach. “Quickly the alcohol product became one of our most important product lines in Canada and we really see the U.S. market — based purely on population and demographics in a lot of the urban centres in the U.S. — to be a huge, huge part of our business.” One area they have yet to dabble in is cannabis-infused beverages, though it is something they explored. The sector has been an important addition to legal weed, but Tumbach said the red tape was too prohibitive, especially with their other expansion plans in play. Jeff Tumbach, founder of Calgary-based Well Juicery, signed a distribution deal with Starbucks for their hard pressed beverages to be carried across Canada at the end of November. © Handout/Well Juicery Jeff Tumbach, founder of Calgary-based Well Juicery, signed a distribution deal with Starbucks for their hard pressed beverages to be carried across Canada at the end of November. Well Juicery has begun empire-building south of the border, with the intention of invading the U.S. one state at a time. The Calgary juice magnate said they are already in Illinois, Washington and Alaska with more on the docket in the coming months. Tumbach moved to Oceanside, Calif. this past month with his wife and two young children to focus earnestly on establishing a foothold in perhaps the most critical market of the Lower 48. “It’s really one of the trend-making places in the world,” he said. “We really want to have success in California, first and foremost, and then adopt more states in the U.S.” He still considers himself Canadian, and most importantly Calgarian. He’s just taking a local product to a more global scene. His goals for the company remain lofty, especially in a land of beverage Goliaths — both in the alcoholic and non-alcoholic sectors. Tumbach, however, may not consider himself to be David in this scenario, but perhaps the next giant in line. They are now the largest cold-pressed juice manufacturer in Canada and are in the same ballpark with the largest brands in the U.S. It’s a long way from breaking out a cold press juicer for the first time in his apartment in 2012. “When we got into juice, there was Dole, Tropicana, Minute Maid, and people were like, ‘You don’t stand a chance.’ But we said we’re here to build better products,” said Tumbach. “As long as we’re willing to do the same things down in the U.S. and not cut corners we really know we’re going to have success here too.” [email protected]

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