Consumer demand for juice continues to grow each year. Consumers want fresh, natural juices – free of preservatives and artificial add-ons – that also provide a boost in wellness. Today’s consumer seeks fresh juices that aid in weight management, increased energy, and improvements in mood and sleep.
Fresh juices are no longer exclusive to juice bars and smoothie outlets. Restaurants, cafes, bakeries, grocery, and convenience stores can take advantage of this trend by serving their own offering of freshly squeezed juices to their customers.
Considerations
Commercial juicers must be reliable for daily use, and efficient for the volume your business needs to produce. For example, a juice bar can expect to produce a much higher volume of juice in comparison to a cafe with a wider variety of beverage offerings.
If you are working with high production volumes, you are going to want a juicer that is fast and efficient. You will want a machine with a larger feed as this will be able to process more fruits and vegetables and require less preparation time. You may also look for a machine that doesn’t take up too much of your valuable countertop space.
Furthermore, it is important to determine what kinds of juice your establishment will offer. Each type of commercial juicer is designed with a specific purpose. Determine the variety of juices your business will offer to find your ideal juicer.
Types of Commercial Juicers
Centrifugal Juicers
Centrifugal juicers use blades to chop up and sieve fruits and vegetables, yielding juice quickly while transferring pulp and solids into another container. These commercial juicers work extremely fast and are ideal for most fruits and vegetables. Generally, these machines are easy to use and require less prep time as most require little to no pre-cutting of fruits and vegetables. Centrifugal juicers are ideal for medium to high volume productions
Centrifugal juicers produce a juice that contains a higher amount of solids than other commercial juicers. Its fast motor is efficient, but can be noisy to operate. The speed of the motor results in a highly oxidized juice from the heat and friction of the blade. As a result, juices produced will have a shorter shelf life and are believed to be less nutrient dense.
Citrus Juicers
Citrus juicers are highly efficient and provide a convenient solution to manually squeezed citrus fruit juices. Serve freshly squeezed orange juice, or fresh lemon and lime juice for mixes and other recipes. It is important to consider that these juicers do not work well with harder fruits and veggies. If your establishment plans to juice other ingredients, it will be beneficial to consider another type of commercial juicer.
Masticating Juicers
Masticating juicers are also known as cold press juicers. These machines are slow juicers, but provide more nutrients within a yield. This is achieved through its ability to squeeze more out of the pulp using a gear, retaining more nutrients, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and a higher fiber content. As a result, more juice is extracted from the same quantity of ingredients. Cold press juicers are suitable for low volume productions and batch-made juices.
Cold press juicers are ideal for juicing leafy greens, such as kale or spinach. Furthermore, these machines are quiet in comparison to other commercial juicers. These juicers create less friction and heat, resulting in low oxidation of the juices. This increases the overall shelf life of the product.
Some things to consider when operating a cold press machine is that they require more prep work and can be more difficult to clean. Also, these juicers are generally more expensive than other types in the market.
Establish Your Juice Menu Today
Whether you are looking to establish your juice bar, or add an exciting new offering of fresh juices in your foodservice establishment – Babak Food Equipment is your provider for commercial juicers. Backed by over 20 years of expertise in commercial kitchen equipment and restaurant supply, we have the know-how to help you establish and upgrade your kitchen facilities. We are your one-stop shop for all of your kitchen essentials.