How to grow your gross profit with freshly-squeezed orange juice

Convenience retailers could bring in additional gross profit of around £20,000 a year, thanks to a new freshly-squeezed orange juice machine.

iSqueeze machines allow shoppers to squeeze fresh orange juice straight into a bottle before taking it to the till to pay.

The company was founded by Elias Ebert in 2011 after he discovered the concept in several European countries and decided to bring it to the UK. “We found that nobody was doing this in convenience stores here,” he told Retail Express.“The trend for health has picked up. Generally, it hasn’t been easy to be healthy, but this is an easy opportunity for a retailer to be more responsible in what they’re selling and it’s easy for the consumer to get it.”

The company began a trial in Siva Thievanayagan’s Nisa Local Fletton store in Peterborough in January, which Ebert says has been “hugely successful”. “Fletton is a less affluent place, but it’s gone really well. They’re on course for about £33,000 of revenue this year just from the orange juice machine,” he said.

“Retailers can make a margin of 60-70% on it. “If you’re looking at revenue of £33,000 a year, there’s around £20,000 of gross profit.”

Thievanayagan told Retail Express he was really pleased with his iSqueeze machine. “It took a little while to get going, but now we’ve put it in a better place in the shop it’s going really well,” he said.

The machines cost £6,500 to buy outright – Ebert says retailers can make their money back in just 100 days – or they can be hired for £136 a month. iSqueeze supplies the fruit and bottles. Bottles come in 300ml and 500ml, with an RRP of £2-2.50 and £3-3.50, respectively.

“Ultimately, we’d like to see this in every convenience store. In Europe, you can get it anywhere. There’s no reason why we should be different here,” added Ebert. “Retailers are not in the business for fun, they’re doing it to make profit and we’re able to bring this to them in a way that can be very profitable.”

Top tips

1. Focus on freshly-squeezed orange juice to start. If it’s successful and you have a deli or food to go counter, you can add smoothies to your range
2. Get a top-quality machine. “It needs to be robust,” said Ebert. “And get maintenance support for the machine.”
3. Put it in a prominent location. “Initially, when we put it into the Fletton store it was in the wrong place. Now they’ve moved it closer to the entrance and food to go, and sales have increased four-fold,” said Ebert.