goodsugar is a UNICORN

Why goodsugar Is a Unicorn Business

I’m not a Wall Street guy or a hedge fund guy. I learned the term unicorn from my former business partner. I understand it has a specific financial meaning, but I’m using it to describe a company that breaks away from the pack and does something extraordinary.

I believe Juice Press was a unicorn, and goodsugar is one too. Not because of size, but because of how they are built: the branding, the marketing, the products and the way they sell. Neither may ever become a gigantic company, and that was never the point. Eventually someone will build a massive business on this model, because the demand for genuinely healthy food is only going to grow, even in the neighborhoods where juice bars struggle today.

I’ve also come to believe that in a city like New York, there’s a limit to how much business one store should do before it becomes inefficient. Constant lines frustrate customers and invite competition. Someone will eventually open nearby offering something similar without the wait. Every successful business move creates an opportunity for a countermove. Don’t get blinded by success.

goodsugar is a monster in its category, doing incredible daily sales. Customers become obsessed with our products, our brand, and how the food makes them feel. But we’re also trying to educate people about health, eating, movement, meditation, anxiety, relationships, and all the things that contribute to a better life.

Here’s what I’ve observed about big money groups. They love a successful health-food concept, but often have little interest in the principles that made it successful.

They look at someone like me and think, “If that schmuck can do it, imagine what we can do.”

Then they get into the business without the same devotion to health. Something doesn’t click, so they start cutting corners. They pressure-process the juice, abandon organics, reduce labor, buy cheaper ingredients and packaging, and eventually sell junk food disguised as health food.

Every compromise looks reasonable on a spreadsheet.

They know what they’re doing. They justify it by looking at successful junk-food companies and saying, “That’s what people want.”

But that’s not what makes a business like this special.

Anyone can sell people what they’re already eating. Very few people are willing to build a business around helping them eat better, especially when doing it properly costs more.

That’s what makes goodsugar different. And that’s why I call it a unicorn.

People in the food business like to tell you that you can only pick two. Fast, cheap or good. Healthy, tasty or affordable. Organic or convenient. Pick two and be grateful.

We picked all of them. That is why we call goodsugar a unicorn. A unicorn is the thing everyone agrees cannot exist, right up until it walks into the room.

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Walk into most juice bars and smoothie shops and you will find some version of the same compromise. The juice is pasteurized or high pressure processed so it can sit in a warehouse for weeks. The cups are plastic. The "healthy" bowl is sweetened with refined sugar and called clean. Nobody is lying exactly, they are just cutting corners in places you cannot see.

At goodsugar we do it the hard way, every single day:

• organic. The produce is organic because what goes into your body matters more than our margins.
• never HPP. Our juice is pressed fresh and never pasteurized or high pressure processed. It is alive, which is the whole point.
• no refined sugar. Sweetness comes from fruit, maple and dates, not a bag of white powder.
• plant based and kosher. Everything on the menu.
• plastic free. Glass jars, and you get money back when you return them.
• baked in house. Our gluten free bakery comes out of our own kitchen, early in the morning, and when it is gone it is gone.
• people worship the product. They feel a deep connection to the message, as if it belongs to them. It was meant to be shared. We heal together, as one.

Any one of those is a nice idea. All of them at once, in one small store on Third Avenue and 69th Street, is a unicorn.

why it is so rare

Because it is expensive, slow and inconvenient to run a business this way. Fresh juice does not keep. Glass breaks. Organic costs more. Baking from scratch means somebody is in the kitchen before sunrise. Every shortcut in this industry exists because it saves money, and every one of them costs you something in the glass.

We have been doing this for a long time. Before goodsugar, I built a juice company that grew to 85 stores in six states. I learned what scale does to a product, and I learned exactly which corners get cut when growth becomes the goal. goodsugar is what I built when I decided to stop cutting them.

why it matters to you

You are smarter than the marketing. You can taste the difference between juice pressed this morning and juice pressed three weeks ago. You can feel the difference between a smoothie built on real food and one built on syrup. You notice when a place actually cares.

So come see the unicorn for yourself. Grab a smoothie, a juice, a bowl or a slice of banana bread. Bring your jar back. Earn your discount points. And if anyone tells you healthy food cannot also be delicious, honest and good for the planet, send them our way.

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