july2017

72 73 CLEAN JUICE PREFERRED VENDOR n JL Hufford www.jlhufford.com see every piece of produce selected and juiced, just for them. And every order is delivered in a cup with the guest’s name on it. That customer relationship is a key reason behind the Clean Juice success. VP of Development for Clean Juice, Dave Cuff, relates, “From my perspective, overseeing the franchise side of things, what’s important as we grow is our brand standard.When our em- ployees come on board, they’re taught that the guest experience is the number one priority; it’s not how to make a juice or a smoothie. Through our award process, we spend a lot of time getting to know each candidate. It’s important they have the same passion that we do. It’s not necessarily about your business background– we can teach that. It’s more about identifying in the early stages of our franchise owners’ devel- opment, the ones that have drive, that really embody everything we do as Clean Juice.” There are currently eight multi-unit franchise owners, but multiple units are only sold to select individuals. It’s preferred they start with one store to understand the process and get all the operations down before stepping into a second and third store. Landon sees a future of steady growth. “We hope to sign 100 franchise units this year, and continue to grow over the next five to seven years –whether that means taking the com- pany public or continuing to build privately.We feel that our product and concept needs to be in every market, and we truly believe we’re making the communities that we serve, better. In the next three to four years, I hope we have a couple hundred stores and we’re talking about going internationally.” Kat Eckles shares fond sentiments about the business she loves: “Our mission statement is a verse from the Bible, but the basic gist is that we want everyone we are in contact with to be healthy in body and strong in spirit. So, we’re serving this health-oriented product that is good for your body, but the other half is being mentally healthy and spiritually strong. That’s behind every decision we make, every drink we serve. Landon and I have done this together as a husband and wife team.We have five young kids, so it’s certainly a family enterprise.We want our customers to feel that too.We want to serve a smoothie that your three-year-old can come in and drink, and it’s so awesome and delicious that they want to get it instead of ice cream.” That family-based experience carries over to franchisees.“We have siblings that are running stores together; couples; best friends. It’s some- thing that’s fun and positive.We want to extend to other people that we’re happy together–not just investors looking for the best bang for their buck.”

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