Lovejuice - Shopping Centre

Lovejuice

It may have an amusing name but Lovejuice's John Heseltine is the one who's laughing

Published: 13 July, 2006

Page 6

Grabbing a healthy snack on the move is not always easy, but in a health-conscious climate, well-being and convenience need to go hand-in-hand.

Popularity for smoothies, fresh fruit milkshakes and juices has gained momentum over the last few years and while many people would not have known what a smoothie was 10 years ago, nowadays they are a popular on-the-move drink/snack.

Lovejuice is the leading chain of branded juice bars in the UK, offering juices, smoothies and other beverages in shopping centres and transport hubs. John Heseltine set up Lovejuice in 2003 after spending two years in San Francisco where a similar operation, Jamba Juice, was very successful. Heseltine's first store at Stansted Airport was so successful that in autumn 2004 he opened a second at Bluewater.

Following a major investment into the company by Tom Singh of New Look, Heseltine opened further branches at Manchester and Gatwick airports, along with Brent Cross and most recently thecentre:mk.

Heseltine says: "In the beginning of this year we wanted to grow to 60 stores in two years so we had to go and raise a little bit more money. We raised that through Smedvig Capital which invested £2.3m about a month ago, and so we are now expanding."

Touchwood and the Bullring are the next openings, while Heseltine stresses that shopping malls across the UK are interested in the product. The Trafford Centre, Meadowhall, Cribbs Causeway as well as centres in Norwich, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Southampton have all shown interest.

"We see shopping centres as our core business," he says. "And we see transport terminals as another outlet, but we're potentially going to franchise most of those." Elior is Lovejuice's franchise partner in this sector and already the company is expanding into continental airports.

"All the shopping centre stores are company-owned," adds Heseltine. "That way we can keep control of the branding and the marketing and we know what the customer likes and dislikes are and can pass that on to our franchise partner as well.

"The top 100 shopping centres are really where we're targeting and with Elior we're looking at all the major train stations.

"The shopping centres love our brand and all the centres we've been in have been very successful. We've made a lot of money for them as well because we pay pretty good rents and happily we've had a great deal of interest from all the big mall chains."

Lovejuice usually operates in kiosks or small stores of 100 to 300 sq ft. "We need high visibility and high footfall. We're not a destination, as people eat on the go, so we need to be where the people are," Heseltine explains.

Heseltine sees the potential to open 150 stores in the UK and with transport terminals across Europe Heseltine sees no reason why Lovejuice couldn't get to 500 or 600 outlets. And with a little help from operations director Norine Brown, who came from Millies Cookies and Aroma, Heseltine is confident of the future. "She knows what she's doing," he says. "Millies has 125 sites now and I think we can beat that."

Last year the company saw a turnover of £1.5m and Heseltine is predicting £4m this year, but will this rate of growth continue? "Absolutely," he says. "There are so many available sites, there's a strong potential to continue that growth."

So what is it that has made Lovejuice so successful?

"The timing was right," says Heseltine. "There's so much emphasis on healthy living. Everyone knows what a smoothie is now. We were able to grow on the back of that with our marketing and branding."

The company offers 27 different smoothies and the fruit is squeezed fresh in front of the customer so they can see exactly what's going into their drink. And it is this format that Heseltine is keen to stick with.

"Customers appreciate we're the specialist in the market and we don't want to dilute our brand by adding ancillary products," he says.