Freshness is the enemy of profits.
When you build a chain, you think in the beginning there's going to be huge savings on cost to produce, cost of paper goods. It doesn't actually work out like that. There are a lot of little details that fit right in between store one and store two, store two and store five. In a chain, decisions get made to pay back the investors. That's fine for certain types of businesses. It's not great for a business that revolves around human health. Instead of making decisions to keep people healthy and give them knowledge, it's too tempting to just chase profits.
In a chain, the most important people in your labor system get forgotten. The ones doing the hardest work with their hands, standing on their feet, are paid the least. It's very difficult to keep a large group of people happy and plugged into the mission. In a smaller organization, it's easy to keep everyone close to the founders.
I used to believe the secret was to only concentrate on cutting produce and never cut corners. At scale, that philosophy could not hold.
Fresh, high quality, highly perishable food is difficult to scale, and there are reasons. One, more waste. Two, fewer people want this type of food. Maybe because it seems expensive. People are conditioned to think about how many calories they get and how full they feel based on each dollar they spend. Fewer people understand how expensive it actually is to put this much juice into a container. The cost of buying produce, storing it, paying for electricity, rent, taxes, washing the produce, storing it again, and then prepping it.
My wife would much prefer to make juice and smoothies at home. She often complains about how much work it is to do it well. She has to go shopping. She has to bring the produce home. She has to wash everything and store it. Then she has to make the smoothie or juice. Then she has to clean up. You'd think it's not a big deal, but for a lot of us, it's a difficult lifestyle.
The secret, if you're interested in getting into this business: concentrate on having one great store rather than ten bad ones. Maybe you can figure out a way to have two great stores. But be careful. The tendency of the entrepreneur is to want to scale everything. This business does not scale well. And that is quite okay. You can do a lot of positive things at one store that don't involve expansion. They don't involve a network of refrigerated trucks. They don't involve a commissary with thousands of square feet of refrigeration. That kind of business is incredibly capital intensive. There are easier ways to make a living.
Keep it small so you have the best quality possible.
What's my take on investment capital from outsiders who don't share the mission of serving people? It's just a matter of time before money becomes the god and all of us within the system become the servants of a corrupt master.
If you think I'm wrong, please feel free to disprove me. When you do, you'll show me how. And then I'll figure out how to do it even better.
I've been to the mountaintop. I didn't like the view.
Fresh perishable food doesn't scale, chains end up serving investors instead of human health, and the smart move in this business is to run one excellent store rather than chase the expansion fantasy that turns money into god and everyone else into its servant.