When you’re starting a juicing business, your juicer is going to be your Nr. 1 investment. You’re going to need a juicer that can juice without taking breaks. That’s easy to clean between recipes. And that can extract quality juice with a high yield. Choosing the right juicer is a balance between, how many juices you can sell, how much time you’ve got to make juice and how much money you have to invest.
Before looking into the specific juicers, we need to understand the difference between the types of juicers. It makes it easier to narrow the selection from hundreds of juicers to only a few suitable for your business. You can categorize the juicers into 3 types. Centrifugal Juicers, Slow Juicers, and the Hydraulic Press or also known as a Cold-pressed juicer.
Type 1: Centrifugal
This is the most common type of juicer. It juices almost anything that is edible and chewable with human teeth. It cannot process wheatgrass because of the wheatgrass texture.It is easily available for a reasonable price. It works fast, and cleaning can be done without much of a problem, but it cuts up your fruits and vegetables at high speed. Anywhere to 30.000 RPM (Rotations per minute). Your fresh juice will oxidize faster which will impact the quality of the juice. So it should be consumed immediately. Since we are delivering our juices, this is not the best way to go. If you open up a juice bar, than most places use a centrifugal juicer (and mostly one or two other juicers) because it is so fast to extract the juice and your customers will drink them immediately.
Type 2: Slow Juicer
This juicer is good to process fruit and vegetables together with leafy greens such as wheatgrass and herbs. Most of the cold press/ slow juicers crush and then squeeze with a low auger operation of around 80rpm. Benefits are that you get a “living juice” that can be stored for up to 48 hours while retaining nutritional integrity. These days there are 2 different types of slow juicers available: vertical and horizontal slow juicers. The vertical slow juicers are created because of the popularity of the centrifugal juicers. People wanted a centrifugal juicer but with the amazing quality of extracted juice of a slow juicer. So the vertical juicers are the solution. They juice a lot faster and some have very large openings so you do not have to cut the fruits and vegetables into small pieces, which makes preparing a lot easier.
Type 3: Hydraulic Press / Cold-Pressed
If you really want to offer the highest quality juice and are looking for a real commercial juicer than a hydraulic press is the way to go. So how does this one work? It works in two steps. In the first step, it shreds everything into small pieces. Then you put these small pieces into a mesh bag and this bag is placed under the press. It then releases a lot of pressure on the mesh bag until all juice has been squeezed out. It leaves the driest pulp ever! So basically if you make a lot of juices, and you will, this machine will pay for itself because it extracts so much more juice.
Commercial vs Home (Residental)
All three types are available for “home” and “commercial” use. Especially when you’re starting a small juicing business, you might be tempted by the lower price tag of juicers that are used at home. There are plenty of small juicing businesses that have started this way. However, there are some big differences between the two. So what makes commercial juicers different?
They are bigger
Commercial juicers are bigger in size. In a professional kitchen it’s expected to have a large and continuous stream of customers, and therefore you need to make a lot of juice. If you don’t have equipment that can handle that workload, it will have a huge impact on the production and efficiency in the kitchen.
Build Quality
Any piece of equipment needs to be replaced eventually. A regular slow juicer of a decent brand will have a 5-year warranty on the motor. But that’s for use at home. They are not built for constant use. Let’s say you’ll normally use your juicer once a day for 20 minutes over the course of 5 years. That’s 20 x 365 x 5 / 60 minutes = 608 hours of use. But if you’ll use it 10 hours each day, 10 days / 608 hours = 60 days. It will break down in just 60 days instead of 5 years! Commercial juicers, on the other hand, are typically manufactured with a high standard of quality.
Yield
Besides that the quality is great. Commercial juicers also are designed to be efficient and get the most juice out of your produce. As home juicer tend to clog up after juicing for a while, having an impact on how much juice you get out of your produce. A commercial juicer is designed to handle large amounts.
When you’re starting out. You need to start somewhere. Not everyone can afford a commercial juicer in the beginning. You can except that it’s not that efficient or that it will break down after 60 days, you can always buy a second one. But there’s one more important perspective that’s often forgotten.
How long do you want to be in the Kitchen?
Making fresh juice takes time. If I want to make 100 bottles a day. And get a slow juicer. It would take about 10 hours in the kitchen to make those 100 bottles of juice. You have to throw in your produce one by one and you’ll need to clean the juicer every few liters because it will clog up easily. There’s also a limited amount of orders your business can handle.
With an X-1 mini commercial cold-pressed juicer it would take about 3 hours to make those same 100 bottles of juice. That will save you 7 hours a day! If you’ll juice 3 days a week. That’s 7 x 3 = 21 hours a week. Or 84 hours a month. The less time I’m spending in the kitchen. Means more time, working “on” the business and getting new customers.
Here’s an overview of other popular juicers, how much they cost, how fast they can produce 100 bottles and their maximum bottle production in 10 hours.
*Please note, these numbers are based on what the juicer can produce on average. You could get a lot more or less from these juicers. The exact output depends on the recipe, produce and the person making the juice.
The numbers are based on the following per hour: Slow juicers – 5 L, Norwalk 290 – 7.5 L, Pure Juicer – 10 L, X1 Mini – 16L, CT-7 – 26L, X1 – 100L.
You can download a One-Page-Sheet of all of the data of the juicers below as a PDF.
We’ve learned that there are 3 types of juicers. A hydraulic press or also called the cold-pressed juicer is the best way to go if you’re starting a juicing business and bottling juice. Investing in the right juicer is a balance between how many juices you can sell, how much time you can spend in the kitchen and how much money you have to invest.
Obviously, when you purchase an X-1 juicer and are able to produce 2000 bottles a day but only have 10 orders, you also have a problem. You need to have the orders coming in to justify the investment. So if you don’t have the money or orders yet. Start with the juicer you already own. Just know that you will spend a lot more time in the kitchen making juice. But this is a great way to establish customers and reinvest your earnings. So you can eventually move your way up to a bigger juicer.
But instead of focusing only on the price tag of the juicer. Also look at how much time you want to spend in your kitchen juicing. You can use that time to work “on” your business instead of “in” your business. We all have a limited amount of time. And we would love to do as much as we can, but the trouble is, we tend to think we have more time than we actually do.
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