Juicero: Squeezing every last dime out of a bad idea

In case you haven’t heard about Juicero yet, consider yourself lucky. This Wi-Fi connected juicer (which is essentially a Keurig machine for juice) has been making the headlines again lately, after investors began complaining that they were misled by the founder.

Basically, Juicero is a countertop device that squeezes juice from a packet into a glass. It operates on a razor-and-blade business model — only you get gouged for the razor AND the blades, and the blades only have a shelf life of 6 days.

In an interview with Recode last fall, the company’s founder, Doug Evans, told the story of Juicero. Evans was one of the founding partners of Organic Avenue, a cold-pressed juice company – until 2012, when a partner bought out most of the equity and, in his words, told him to “go take a walk.”

Doug Evans, the veggie visionary behind Juicero.

In telling the story of how he came up with Juicero, Evans goes so far as to call himself the Steve Jobs of juice — “I’m going to do what Steve did. I’m going to take the mainframe computer and create a personal computer, I’m going to take a mainframe juice press and I’m going to create a personal juice press.”

Here’s how Juicero is supposed to work:

Juicero ships out packets of “chopped fresh fruits and vegetables” to its customers on a subscription basis, where subscribers get a refrigerated delivery of packets once a week. The packets need to stay below 41 degrees, so they must be refrigerated at all times (but can’t be stored in the freezer, as that can “compromise flavor and nutrient density.”)

 

These packets fit inside a $400 (originally priced at $700) device that sits on your counter. The Juicero then scans a chip embedded in the packet to make sure it’s not expired (the machine refuses to press packets after they hit the expiration date – but fear not! The Juicero app will send you notifications every time you have a pack about to expire.)

Once you put a pack in the machine, it squeezes your fresh juice with 3 to 4 tons of pressure (enough to lift two Teslas!) And dispenses it into your glass (this process takes about two minutes). Each packet costs $5-7, and packets contain anywhere from 3 to 8 ounces worth of juice, depending on the flavor. Juicero is currently available in 17 states.

According to the founder, it takes a lot of specialized technology to press juice out of Juicero packets. As he described it to Recode, “there are 400 custom parts in here… there’s a scanner; there’s a microprocessor; there’s a wireless chip, wireless antenna.”

Here’s how it actually works:

Funny story, some of Juicero’s backers discovered that the packets could be squeezed just as well by human hands. A reporter from Bloomberg performed a test, which found that although the Juicero press yielded a half ounce more juice, squeezing the packets by hand was 30 seconds faster. Either the reporter from Bloomberg is freakishly strong, or Juicero’s claim about 3-4 tons of pressure is a load of pulp. It also seems that rather than freshly chopped berries and greens (as the marketing implies), Juicero bags contain something more akin to liquefied slime. Naturally, Juicero’s response to the revelation that its packets can be squeezed by hand was to require you to show proof that you own the machine before allowing you to buy packets.

Now investors are (understandably) frustrated, after being promised a machine capable of squeezing large chunks of fruits and vegetables. And you might ask, who actually invested in this product? Unbelievably, Juicero secured around $120 million dollars, with hefty buy-in from companies including Alphabet (Google), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Campbell’s Soups.

Why Juicero is a terrible idea

Now that the “3-4 tons of force” claim has been debunked, we’ve learned that this bulky and pricey machine pretty much does the equivalent of opening a juice bottle. Only it will refuse to work if your juice is a minute past the expiration date (good thing you can use your hands!).

Speaking of food safety, we also wonder about the contamination issues that often crop up in our industrial food system — what happens if Juicero gets a batch of contaminated spinach? What happens if the packets get delayed in transit and the ice pack melts? And if Juicero goes out of business now that the jig is up, and they stop selling packets, what in the world are you going to do with that monstrous machine?