I chatted with Anita, founder of YouJuice, who provides Babble’s cafe with the super popular juices that our regulars can’t live without. They’re a local business based at their beloved Garage Café in Brunswick Square where they’ve been operating for over a decade.

 

 

How did YouJuice begin?

It happened by mistake. It was never really a dream. I started juicing for myself and pretty quickly after getting into juices I started to feel amazing and a lot healthier. This was back in January 2014. I got into juice fasting and felt even better, just clearer and lighter and more energetic. At the time I was a single mum to a three year old and working full time, and I was itching to start my own thing, to work for myself. Around that time my friends and family started asking if I could make juices for them too after they’d tasted mine and seen how well they worked for me. So I started making juice for them, and they were my first customers.

 

How has the business grown since then?

At first I was doing everything out of my home kitchen but it got out of control pretty quickly and I had to move out and find another bigger space. Home kitchens aren’t built for making and storing hundreds of bottles of juice. The same day I decided that I was driving home from the shop and saw a rental sign in a perfectly placed property in Montpelier Place. Initially it was only meant as a production space, but once we started doing the building work I saw how much we were investing in the space and so we pivoted to creating a shop space too. I was nervous, I never wanted to be in retail, but I could never have imagined how well it would turn out.

 

Where did the name YouJuice come from?

I spent a lot of time talking about juices to friends and family and the phrases ‘do you juice?’ and ‘you juice right?’ kept coming up. So I just shortened it to ‘YouJuice’ which feels like the original questions but also an encouraging statement at the same time.

 

Can you explain your unique and iconic and ingenious lettering numbering system for your juices?

So for the letters, L stands for Leaf, C stands for citrus, R stands for Root, H stands for Hydration. And for the numbers, 0 is the most earthy and vegetal it is and the higher the number the fruitier it is. It seems complicated but it only takes a few seconds to understand!

 

You’ve been open for over a decade now. What have been the biggest surprises along the way?

The way the business changed as I incorporated customer feedback. When I opened the shop I only had juice and customers were coming and saying ‘I want to come here for my lunch break but I need something more than just juice’ and so I started making salads. Someone else suggested having some healthy chocolate for sale. Over time the shop became full of new products and a community of customers I never dreamt of having at the start. In this way my customers gave me a roadmap for my business, and as I kept going down that path everything built into something we all benefitted from. 

 

Can you talk us through the process of making your juices?

All our juices at YouJuice are cold pressed and hand pressed. A lot of our produce is hand pressed but we have big machine presses for our larger produce like apples, cucumbers, ginger and carrot. We love our machine presses and they each have names. There’s Angel, the big Korean press, and he really is an angel. And then Bayor which is our biggest and fussiest press, he’s a real diva but we need him because he’s processing 200 kilos of apples a day so we take good care of him.

The fruit or veg gets chopped up and fed into the machine where it’s gently, finely shredded, and then dropped into a big bag. Then a four ton press squeezes super slowly so that no heat is created like there would be if blended – the friction from blending creates heat which kills all the minerals and enzymes, hence the heat free slow press process being called ‘cold pressed’. When every last drop of juice drops to the barrel below, then we take it and mix it together into our different formula combinations.

All our juices are raw also, no pasteurisation, which again means no heat killing off the nutrients. And I insisted on all glass bottles. Drinking fresh juice from unnatural plastic always felt wrong to me. And it’s great for elevating the whole experience; juice just tastes better from a glass.

 

What is your most popular product?

Everybody loves our ginger shot. We live in a society where everybody wants an instant kick, a quick fix, and that’s exactly what it does. And it’s great for winter time when you’re feeling low energy from not seeing the sun for days on end. It puts that fiery warmth back in your chest!

 

You have a meticulously designed menu. How long did it take you to invent each item?

At the beginning I was just going off of what tasted good to me. Back then I didn’t have enough nutritional knowledge to make a real high end product for people to buy. So in the early days I worked with someone from Southampton University. Together after six months of research we developed six varieties, all tested for mineral and vitamin and enzyme content as well as the health benefits and bioavailability of each ingredient. We learnt a lot along the way. Like, its important to add acid to every juice as a preservative. And even the fruity juices are heavily vegged for depth of flavour and better texture.

 

What’s been the biggest surprise about running a juice business?

Learning about my customers’ needs and their health. They come in and tell me how they’re feeling and I can recommend to them which juice I think will help them most. My juices over the years have become like prescriptions. They’re so fresh and healthy and clean that they really can sort you out, alongside other healthy lifestyle habits. It’s an accomplishment to be able to say that my shop feels like a healthy natural pharmacy.

 

What should people know about juice?

Do a 21 day juice fast. It will make you feel like a new person. But also, don’t take it too far. Yes, I drink juice every day, and I do regular juice fasts throughout the year, but I also enjoy a steak and a glass of wine every now and then. Everything in moderation. 

 

What’s the secret to running a successful independent business for over a decade in Brighton?

Believing in what you’re doing. Doing it for more than just the money. Yes, everything has to make financial sense, but the reason you started doing it in the first place was because a part of you was telling you to just do this one thing. I’m so grateful for being able to stay open and provide for my community for so long, but more than the money I’m happy because I’m excited by what I’ve created.

I look at my shop and think ‘wow, this is great, this is the way the world should be, full of delicious salads and juices that fill you with energy’. The other part is that when you build a business with your own hands from the ground up people resonate with the sincerity, they feel your passion and return it with their enthusiasm and loyalty.

 

What would you like to see next for YouJuice at Babble?

I’d love to do our famous YouJuice brunches at Babble. A lot of people say it’s the best brunch In Brighton, we even get people coming down from London, and we’d love to bring it to one of Brighton’s best new venues. It would be incredible here in this gorgeous space that Babble has. YouJuice Babble Brunches coming in the near future!