Should Your Juice Bar Cold Press?

Some of you might have been asking yourself the question, should I be cold pressing in my Juice Bar or not?

Let’s look at some pros and cons for cold pressing and centrifugal juicers that might help you make a decision..

Here is a brief breakdown of the difference between a cold press juicer and a centrifugal juicer.

A centrifugal juicer has a high-speed motor with a feed shoot or spout that you can feed the fruit and vegetables into and press it down with a tamper or a plunger.

Cold press machines are also known as hydraulic presses. This is where you have a plate connected to a piston being pressed up against another plate which is how the juice is extracted.

Pros of Centrifugal Juicers

Quick when making drinks to order.

It is usually very quick to make juices with a centrifugal machine. You can also make drinks to order and it is also super easy to customize the order should the customer wish to do so.

Less expensive upfront costs.

They are also a lot less expensive, starting from $1k – $2k and are also very reliable.

Cons of Centrifugal Juicers

Less yield from produce

You won’t be able to get the same kind of yield from your product as you would with a Cold Pressed machine. Leafy greens, in particular, do not work as well with these machines.

Fewer nutrients

You are also not getting the same amount of nutrients as with cold pressing. So if your customer base is looking for the highest quality juice possible, this may not be the way to go.

You can not run cleanse programs from these machines.

Centrifugal juice oxidizes quickly, so although you can make juice for customers to drink within a few hours, we don’t recommend that you make a whole day worth of juice for them in one of these machines.

Pros of cold press machines

More juice and more nutrients

The way that the cell walls of the products are broken down, reduces the oxidation, collecting more juice and maintaining more nutrients offering an overall higher quality product.

Saving – making more money long term.

Cold presses allow you to offer a much more superior product to your customers and help them be healthier. When you get more yield from your product you save more money at the end of the year. That is the long term value.

Cons of cold press machines

Not cheap

The downside is that these units are not cheap, they start at around $13k up to $30k. It’s a sizable investment up front, but you really need to do the math in order to figure out whether this will be a worthwhile investment for you or not.

If you are in a neighborhood where nobody is cold pressing, then you can create a lot of value through the demand and the machine will quickly pay for itself.

Production is more complicated

Using the machines is a little more involved and putting someone’s attention towards running the juice production, can take up a full shift for one individual or even multiple individuals.

Saying this, things within the industry have started to shift. We are aware of companies that have a juicer available which allows you to make a smaller volume of juices in a quicker period of time. We actually have clients that are doing cold press juices made to order. This is a new offering in the industry and we suspect it will soon become the industry standard.