Liquid Measure: Where Form Meets Function
By Monica Rogers, Contributing Editor
Chain Leader, 10/1/2007

Just when you figured out how to say acai (ah-say-ee) and understood that a goji berry wouldn’t choke you if you met one on the street, your perky Jamba Juice smoothie-maker ups the ante. Noticing you look workout-weary, she offers to enhance your beverage with Jamba’s Whey Protein Super Boost, a fix of superfoods designed to build, repair and maintain muscles after a workout.

It’s official: Functional foods have reached the U.S. restaurant industry mainstream.

Translating growing guest desires for specific health properties and benefits into tasty recipes and the menus that market them, 659-unit Jamba Juice is "trying to do functional in a way that’s not preachy, prescriptive or medicinal," says Senior Vice President of Marketing and Brand Development Paul Coletta. Hence Jamba’s new line of Functional Smoothies and breakfast parfaits with superfood mix-ins.

Defined as food or beverage ingredients that provide extra benefits beyond basic nutrition, functional foods have blossomed in grocery stores, from calcium-enhanced orange juice to yogurts full of probiotics. Although most fruits and vegetables technically fit the definition, in the restaurant industry, functional foods have made the biggest promotional inroads in beverages, with trendy energy drinks at the top of the list.

Operators fall into two categories: those who promote sugary, caffeinated energy drinks and those who focus on more healthful fruit-based drinks that use nutrition to boost energy sustainably.

Among these, Jamba Juice is a healthful-drink leader. It’s a stance praised by Pete Maletto, functional foods consultant and president of Long Branch, N.J.-based PTM Food Consulting, who says "cutting excessive sugars will help functional foods’ credibility for the long term."

Straddling two booming industries, Emeryville, Calif.-based Jamba Juice stands in a powerful place. Smoothie industry sales are expected to total $2.5 billion in 2007, up from $340 million in 1997, says Chino Hills, Calif.-based juice consulting firm Juice Gallery Multimedia. And functional foods—including any product that makes a distinct, written health claim—are among the leading U.S. food industry trends, reaching $15.4 billion in 2006, says David Lockwood, research director for Chicago-based Mintel International Group.

But figuring out how to embrace mainstream smoothie drinkers and hard-core functional food users at the same time takes some careful stepping.

Benefits in Good Taste

That’s where Jamba Juice Vice President of Product Innovation Brian Lee and marketing guru Coletta come in. "Fruit is at the core of everything we do," says Coletta. "But no matter what we do, it has to taste good."

Working together, the two have shaped new menus that cover both taste and function. Jamba Juice launched several new superfood drinks in August that join its long list of smoothies and fresh-squeezed fruit juices. The two Matcha Green Tea Shots, $1.80, come with either orange juice or soy. The five new Functional Smoothies include the Heart Defender, $4.60, which "promotes heart health with plant sterols and pomegranates," and the Acai Super-Antioxidant, $4.60, which blends acai berries and other fruits to "help neutralize free radicals and maintain healthy cells."

Lee also added new and reformulated boost and superboost mix-ins to improve flavor and add functionality to any drink.

Bulking Up

And with the launch of its breakfast menu on Sept. 6 in Los Angeles, New York and Hawaii, Jamba has moved superfruits into the main course. Acai berries, plant sterols, soy and whey protein are all in breakfast parfait-style Chunky Smoothies and Granola Toppers, designed to be eaten with a spoon.

"We believe there’s a huge opportunity for Jamba by offering healthy options to the breakfast daypart," says Coletta, who adds that Jamba Juice already does 19 percent of its business at breakfast.

Bulking up blender drinks with chunky bits of fruit, granola and peanut butter addresses two criticisms often launched at liquid-food purveyors: satiety and portion size. Critics have long suggested that even though there are four to six servings of fruit in a 24-ounce Jamba drink, liquid food doesn’t fill a person like solid food, which can encourage overeating. Jamba’s new items, available in 12- or 16-ounce cups, are designed to give diners a feeling of fullness, "even in a smaller size," says Lee.

Credibility is crucial. Guests told Jamba Juice they would increase store visits based on the efficacy of the products and health claims, according to the company. This is not surprising. Because claims made by the U.S. functional food industry are largely unregulated, there’s a lot of confusion and doubt about truth in marketing. "We’ve found that sticking with proven science and clinical trials goes a long way toward building consumer confidence in Jamba," Coletta says.

For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity measurement has quantified foods such as green tea, acai berry, blueberry and raspberry as having the most free-radical-fighting phytochemicals. So featuring these foods and their benefits on menus lends credibility.

It’s too soon to say whether Jamba Juice’s improved boosts and new functional smoothies are driving customer frequency, but three weeks after launch, the new products were slightly above target for sales mix and were scoring well for taste and intent to repurchase.

While the functional smoothies are more expensive to make than other smoothies, Jamba says the line has not increased food costs. The chain adjusted all menu prices (some went up; some went down) in August.

Clear Marketing Message

Honing product marketing messages down to one superfood benefit rather than many is also crucial, says Coletta. Low-sugar and calorie count, for example, are biggies with some female guests, which explains the success of the Jamba Light product line launched in 2005. But Jamba found that the low-calorie message was more effective in reaching this group than the sugar-free message. "The female light user just wants to hear that the product is under 200 calories," Coletta says.

Shaping new menu items, Lee is in the lab every day analyzing both common fruits and vegetables and as many as six to 10 exotic fruits every six months. "We may look at 10 or more different versions, varietals, etc. for each," he explains.

Lee expects to use more superfruits such as goji berry and mangosteen as well as fruit and vegetable combinations. He says carrot is the easiest to blend with fruit, which is why it was the first veggie-fruit blend to be featured on the new breakfast menu. Called Sweet Sunshine, $3 for 16 ounces, the drink mixes fresh-squeezed orange and carrot juices with apple and strawberry juices.

Organics are another product area Jamba wants to play more aggressively with. "Although this is not as easy as you may think," Coletta says. Beyond the new organic granola, he says organics may soon include products on the fresh-squeezed roster (carrots, orange juice, wheat grass and lemons) as well as baked goods.

Adding lots of possibility to the Jamba Juice menu, the company is adding fast-cook ovens to its lineup. Currently in test to heat whole-wheat hot pocket sandwiches in three flavors, the ovens may expand opportunities for more hot products over time. Liquid possibilities include soups, hot teas and coffees.

"Again, no matter what we do, it has to taste good," Lee concludes.