How to Start a Juice Business: Costs, Rules and Yield

To start a cold-pressed juice business you need a licensed kitchen, a press, bottles and labels, a supply of produce, and a clear answer to one question: will you sell only directly to consumers, or to cafés and stores too? That choice decides the federal rules. Selling wholesale makes you a juice processor, with a HACCP plan and a treatment that cuts pathogens 100,000-fold; selling only direct keeps you out of juice HACCP, though packaged untreated juice still carries FDA's warning statement. The money is mostly in yield: in the example below, a 16 oz green juice takes $4.02 of produce and costs $8.97 a bottle all in, and a few points of yield move the margin as much as a price rise does. Below is the cost per bottle, yield, direct versus wholesale, the rules, and the records.

The short version

• Decide early: direct to consumers only, or wholesale too. The rules differ.
• Produce is the biggest cost, and yield, juice out per pound in, decides it.
• Kitchen hours and labor come next; bigger batches spread them.
• Untreated juice keeps only days, so press to orders and sell oldest first.
• Wholesale means juice HACCP and a validated 5-log treatment, such as high pressure processing.
• Packaged juice that isn't treated to a 5-log reduction carries FDA's warning statement.
• TaroStack measures yield on every batch, dates every bottle, and sends the oldest out first. More below.

What a bottle costs

Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, presses a 16 oz green juice in a rented kitchen, 60 bottles in a five-hour session:

At $13 direct, that's a 31% margin. How a rented kitchen compares with a co-packer or your own space is in co-packer vs commercial kitchen.

Yield decides the margin

The recipe assumes 55% of the produce's weight comes out as juice. Yield moves with the press, the produce and the person pressing:

Five points of yield is worth about 35 to 40 cents a bottle, as much as a 3% price rise. Weigh the produce in and the juice out on every batch, and you'll see which produce, which press settings and which shifts get the most out. How to track what a batch gives against what it should is in batch costing example.

Direct or wholesale

Many juice makers start direct, at a market or a counter, and add wholesale once they can afford treatment and a HACCP plan. Who you're selling to also shapes how much you press and when, covered in make to order vs make to stock.

The rules

FDA's juice HACCP regulation applies to any juice sold as such, though raw produce itself isn't covered (21 CFR 120.1). Operating a retail establishment, one that provides juice directly to consumers and doesn't also sell to other businesses, isn't "processing" under the rule (21 CFR 120.3). A processor's HACCP plan has to include controls that consistently achieve at least a 5-log, or 100,000-fold, reduction in the pertinent microorganism for the product's shelf life (21 CFR 120.24; FDA, Juice HACCP).

Juice that hasn't been processed to that standard carries a warning on its label that it hasn't been pasteurized and may contain harmful bacteria (21 CFR 101.17(g)). Your state and local health department license the kitchen and the retail side, and may have rules of their own. This is general information, not legal advice.

Where this stops working

At one market a week, a notebook does. Then you're pressing four recipes three days a week, the kale price doubles, one press gives 52% and the other 58%, and a café wants every delivery to have at least two days left. The notebook can't say what a bottle cost this week, which bottles in the walk-in were pressed Tuesday, or how many to press tomorrow, so you press to a guess and pour the rest away on Friday.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack measures yield and cost on every batch, and keeps every bottle's date in front of you.

Yield and cost, every batch. Each juice is a recipe. Record a batch with the produce that went in and the bottles that came out, and TaroStack takes the produce off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, and costs each bottle from what came out good. Recipe truth compares what your batches give with what the recipe says, so a press, a produce supplier or a shift that gets less out shows up in numbers.

Every bottle, dated. Each batch's bottles go into a lot with the pressed date and a use-by date from the item's shelf life, picked first-expired-first-out by default. Each café can carry its own rule for days left on delivery, and a batch too old for that customer is flagged. The expiry forecast shows what will expire unsold, and what it costs, while there's time to sell it, and anything poured away is recorded with its reason.

And the records are kept. Batch record forms are filled in as the batch is recorded, with your own fields, like cooler temperature or a treatment confirmation, with limits that flag a reading outside them. One report walks any lot to the customers who got it and back to the produce lots inside. Planning works out what to press and when from your orders and your own sales history.

Lots, expiry, recalls, recipes, batches with yield and cost, and batch records are on every plan, from $49 a month; planning is on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

What do I need to start a juice business?

A licensed kitchen, a press, bottles and labels, reliable produce suppliers, insurance, and a decision on whether you'll sell only direct or wholesale too, because wholesale brings juice HACCP and a 5-log treatment.

How much does a bottle of cold-pressed juice cost to make?

In the example, a 16 oz green juice costs $8.97 all in: $4.02 of produce, $0.70 for the bottle and label, $1.67 of labor, $2.08 of kitchen time and $0.50 of overhead.

Do I need a HACCP plan to sell juice?

If you sell to other businesses, such as cafés or stores, you're a juice processor and need a HACCP plan with controls that achieve a 5-log reduction. Selling only directly to consumers isn't processing under the federal rule; check your local health department's rules too.

How long does cold-pressed juice last?

Untreated, a few days refrigerated. Treated, for example by high pressure processing, it lasts longer, depending on the juice and the process; your process and testing set the date.