Part of Your Everyday
Conceived with the idea of creating a new concept with health at its core and convenience as a key pillar, Joe & The Juice was launched 22 years ago and has not stopped growing since. To gain a better understanding of the brand, we sat down with company CEO Thomas Nørøxe to discuss everything juice related and learn more about what lies ahead for a business that continues to gain traction.
The story of Joe & The Juice began over two decades ago when company founder Kasper Basse, a high-level athlete, could not find a suitable product on the market that offered him performance and convenience.
Inspired by other food and beverage concepts, he wanted to create a product with attitude and one that could be consumed on the go. After convincing two friends to let him open a café & juice bar in their clothing store, Rue Verté on Ny Østergade in central Copenhagen, his vision of Joe & The Juice and it becoming a lifestyle brand that is part of its customer’s lives every day, began to take shape.
Speaking with the current CEO, Thomas Nørøxe, he highlights that today Joe & The Juice operates more than 350 units around the world. There is a strong Joe & The Juice store presence across Europe, with a high level of market maturity in Denmark, where it is based. Continued growth in the UK is important to the brand and Thomas explains that they see a lot of potential growth in the country moving forward. Outside of Europe, the US is a key market for the company. After entering in 2015, it now operates 70 units across North America on both coasts, leaving plenty of scope for further penetration.
Away from their own operated stores, they began franchising a few years ago and have had a lot of interest from the Middle East and operators from within the region. In fact Thomas says it has taken them by surprise how popular the concept has been in the Middle East, but what it has done is allow them to reach around 25 units in the region in a short space of time.
“When we open in a new market, we first look at the local population and where they currently go. We aim to position ourselves in more affluent areas to begin with to tap into the local population. From here, we expand outwards and over time move into what we call multi-level shopping areas that are more central,” explains Nørøxe.
“If you take the UK as an example, we began by concentrating our stores around Greater London before moving onto Liverpool and now we are looking at additional stores in that city, as well as focusing on Birmingham and Manchester.”
As a concept, Joe & The Juice is all about juice, sandwiches and hot and cold beverages and over the course of the last 22 years they have carved out a strong portion of the lunch market, between the hours of 11am and 2pm. As he talks about the future ambitions for the business, Thomas tells us how they now want to increase their market share during the breakfast hours of 6am to 11am. To achieve this, they are currently pouring resources into their coffee and have recently introduced new coffee beans into their store portfolio. They are also working on their new breakfast range which is set to be launched in the first half of 2024.
Away from the product side, they are also working on the omni-channel elements of the business, so that moving forward they can accommodate both people coming into their stores as well as delivery partners.
As the topic of discussion moves onto the future of retail and ‘brand experience’, Thomas comments that for Joe & The Juice, it is all about its guests.
“Juice as a concept is not a niche market segment, so what we want to do is be the place customers feel they get an experience as well as a nutritious and healthy juice or snack when they enter a Joe & The Juice bar. At any of our locations, everything is made-to-order, creating good productivity universally in our stores and this is something we will continue to do. In addition, we will continue to work on our guest’s digital experience. We introduced our app a few years ago and this continues to be the best way to communicate with customers, interact with them and highlight new products.”
Like any brand in the modern world, social media is an important tool in its every day marketing. For Joe & The Juice, its key goal in this domain is to remain genuine. Throughout its history, marketing is not something the company is known for; however through its social media platforms they work hard to showcase their people and products. Most recently this has been through TikTok due to its accessibility so on a daily basis they upload new posts where people can see their juicers in action.
After speaking about health, experience and convenience as key pillars of the business, Thomas highlights that the fourth main pillar of Joe & The Juice is sustainability. This is also the area he feels they need to do the most work. Being based in one of the Nordic countries, where sustainability is of particular importance, the CEO wants the company to be ahead of the sustainability curve instead of following the crowd. Food waste is an area they are already doing a lot in through their made-to-order policy. As they only use the products they need for each order, no excess is wasted and is instead used the next day, enabling them to have a very low amount of waste.
So what does Nørøxe feel is the ethos of Joe & The Juice and what lies ahead?
“Lifestyle, we want to be known as a lifestyle brand and be part of the everyday life of our customers. We are evolving the brand to be one that can stand in a lot of different circles. In terms of challenges for our business and what the future holds, it is all about capturing the next generation. We are designed for a wide range of ages and we want to continue this moving forward. When we open a new store, we want 80 per cent of the footfall walking past us to feel they can come in and order, knowing they will get a healthy and tasty beverage or snack.
Moving forward, we want to continue franchising across the world and we are excited about developing these opportunities with ourpartners.”
