Juicero

Juicero was a company that made a device that was marketed as a fruit and vegetable juicer but was revealed to extract juice from pre-processed packets. The company's product was called the Juicero Press, a Wi-Fi connected device that used single-serving packets of pre-juiced fruits and vegetables sold exclusively by the company by subscription. The San Francisco-based firm received $120 million in startup venture capital starting in 2014 from investors including Kleiner Perkins and Alphabet Inc.[1]

Juicero
TypePrivate
FateClosed
Founded2013 (2013)
FounderDoug Evans
DefunctDecember 1, 2017 (2017-12-01)
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California
Area served
United States
Key people
Jeff Dunn, CEO 2016 - 2017
ProductsJuicer, juice packs
Number of employees
232 (June 2017)
Websitejuicero.com

On September 1, 2017, the company announced that it was suspending sales of the juicer and the packets, repurchasing the juicer from its customers and searching for a buyer for the company and its intellectual property.[2][3]

History

Juicero was founded in 2013[4] by Doug Evans, who served as CEO until October 2016, when former president of Coca-Cola North America Jeff Dunn took over the position. The company's juicing press was originally priced at $699 when launched in March 2016,[5] but was reduced to $399 in January 2017, 12 to 18 months ahead of schedule, in response to slow sales of the device.[6]

Produce packs for the press, containing blends of pulped fruits and vegetables,[7] cost between $5 and $7[6] and had a limited lifespan of about 8 days.[8] Each pack had a QR code which was scanned and verified by the Internet-connected machine before it could be used.[5] CEO Jeff Dunn claimed this was to prevent packs from being used past their expiration date, and to facilitate food safety recalls, though critics felt that the feature was a form of digital rights management as it would prevent operation of the press with any produce pack not made by the company.[9] Industrial design for the press was completed by Yves Behar's studio Fuseproject, based in San Francisco.[10]

Controversies

In 2017, Juicero was the target of widespread criticism when Bloomberg News published a story suggesting that the company's produce packs could be squeezed by hand easily and effectively, and that hand-squeezing produced juice that was nearly indistinguishable in quantity and quality from the output of the company's expensive Press device.[11] The company defended its product and its process, claiming that squeezing packs by hand created undue mess and promoted a poor user experience, and later offered full refunds to any customers dissatisfied with its Press device.[12][13]

A disassembled Juicero Press

After taking apart the device, venture capitalist Ben Einstein considered the press to be "an incredibly complicated piece of engineering", but that the complexity was unnecessary and likely arose from a lack of cost constraints during the design process. A simpler and cheaper implementation, suggested Einstein, would likely have produced much the same quality of juice at a price several hundred US dollars cheaper.[7][14][15]

Juicero filed a complaint in federal court in April 2017 against a competing cold-press juicing device, the Froothie Juisir, for allegedly infringing its patent and copying Juicero's trade dress.[16]

See also

References
  1. "Juicero: Juicing boss defends $400 machine". BBC News. 2017-04-21. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  2. Roof, Katie (September 1, 2017). "RIP Juicero, the $400 venture-backed juice machine". Tech Crunch. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  3. Zaleski, Olivia; Huet, Ellen; Stone, Brad (7 September 2017). "Inside Juicero's Demise, From Prized Startup to Fire Sale". bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  4. Heater, Brian (2017-01-24). "Juicero loses another member of its founding team". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  5. Shontell, Alyson; Carson, Biz (2017-04-20). "What it's like to use the $400 juicer that people are freaking out about". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  6. Kowitt, Beth (2017-01-17). "Juicero Slashes Connected Juicer Price from $699 to $399". Fortune. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  7. Geuss, Megan (26 April 2017). "Juicero teardown hints at a very expensively built product". Ars Technica. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  8. "A Note from Juicero's New CEO". Juicero. 2017-04-20. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  9. Lee, Timothy B. (2017-04-21). "Juicero, the $399 internet-connected juicer, explained". Vox. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  10. Tucker, Emma (2016-06-01). "Yves Behar designs Nespresso-style countertop juicer". Dezeen. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  11. "Silicon Valley's $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze". Bloomberg.com. 2017-04-19. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  12. Kastrenakes, Jacob (20 April 2017). "Juicero offering refunds to all customers after people realize $400 juicer is totally unnecessary". The Verge. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  13. Huet, Ellen (2017-04-20). "Juicero Offers All Customers a Refund". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  14. "Here's Why Juicero's Press is So Expensive – Bolt Blog". 24 April 2017.
  15. Kastrenakes, Jacob (25 April 2017). "Juicero teardown reveals the secrets of a wildly overengineered juicer". The Verge.
  16. Geuss, Megan (21 April 2017). "Juice wars: Juicero has sued another juicer maker for patent infringement". Ars Technica. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
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