Boost Juice founder Janine Allis has “spilled the juice” on what exactly goes into the juice chain’s menu of drinks in a bid to build better awareness of the products they offer.
“We’ve got nothing to hide,” Allis told SmartCompany this morning.
No more secret recipes. We are showing u what is in our smoothies https://t.co/Hc5SPKrqqz
— Janine Allis (@Janineboost) April 26, 2016
The bold move towards transparency comes following recent claims in the media that health smoothies like those offered at Boost Juice are as bad as Big Macs.
But Allis says these claims do not reflect Boost Juice’s full menu of drinks, which have been designed with a team of nutritionists, sport nutritionists and naturopaths.
“There’s a very small portion of the population that thought we add sugar into our products,” she says.
“There’s not one grain of sugar in our stores.”
And the heart of Boost Juice has always been a desire to promote healthy living and eating, says Allis, who founded Boost Juice with her husband Jeff Allis in 2000.
“We thought, ‘you know forget all this secrecy’,” she says.
So Allis and her team decided to release five explainer videos on YouTube that reveal what goes into select juices at their stores.
In the candid videos released yesterday, Allis talks through each ingredient as she makes the Wondermelon, Pure Eden, Weekend Warrior, Mango Mirage and Ginger Tonic juices.
“Instant Quick Frozen means that the fruit gets at its optimal level and is frozen really quickly which means it captures all the nutrients in the product,” she says in the Wondermelon video.
She also explains Boost Juice’s probiotic frozen yoghurt, protein powder and what’s in its super fruit booster.
Allis says she is open to releasing additional videos if more people want it, but admits the thought of revealing the secret recipe to Boost Juice drinks would’ve mortified her when she founded the company 16 years ago.
“What you realise as you go down the business is it’s not one element that makes you choose a [brand],” she says.
“It’s how you feel about the brand.”
Allis says having a philosophy of transparency at Boost Juice has also driven up healthy competition and enabled its 500 stores to learn from each other for better growth.
“Knowledge is power,” she says.
Allis encourages all business owners to be more transparent and less fearful that others will take their “big secret idea” and run off with it.
“Get out there and go for it,” she says.
“If you do a good enough job that will actually sort out the competition.”
Allis says the chances of other businesses stealing Boost’s recipes from the videos are slim as it wouldn’t be easy to replicate all the processes the company has in place to source fresh ingredients and combine these.
In some respects the dairy smoothies are also proprietary to them, she says.
However, if people watching get inspired to make their own juices at home then Allis says she will fell the company is staying true to the spirit of Boost Juice and its aim of boosting healthy living.
“If it means more people get inspired to eat more fruit and vegetables whether it’s in smoothies or other [that’s a good thing] … you get addicted to how it makes you feel,” she says.
Dinushi Dias is a freelance journalist and a former StartupSmart reporter and multimedia content producer. She is the co-founder of Melbourne-based production house Dinushi & Power.
