Would you consider buying a Juicero?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I read about this last night, and my first thought was that it had to be an April Fools Day joke, but it is apparently a real thing that is now on sale in California, and will later be more widely available.

The product is called a Juicero, and it’s sort of like a Keurig, but for juice.

CNet story
Business Insider

The juicer costs $699, and it apparently produces delicious cold-pressed juice. But you can’t just chop up a few fruits and vegetables and chuck them in, because the only way to use it is to insert a pre-packed plastic pack full of chopped fruit and veges, which you get from the manufacturer of the device. Each bag apparently costs from $4-10, and produces a single, 8-oz glass of juice.

The benefits of the device, according to its boosters, are that it produces incredibly fresh and high-quality juice, and that there is no cleaning up involved, because all of the crushing happens inside the plastic package, and you then just remove the package.

Problems, for me at least, begin with, but are not limited to, the cost. Not only does it cost you about 700 bucks for the machine itself, but once you have it you are apparently required to commit to a subscription of at least five juice packs per week. At up to $10 per pack, that could get pricey very quickly.

I’m sure that the first thing that comes to many people’s minds in the waste. If this product became popular, the disposal of the plastic packs would create a massive amount of waste. In that way, it is just like a Keurig.

Also, because the fruit and veges come in pre-packaged form, you are limited to the juice combinations selected for you by the company. There are currently five flavor combos, with a promise to release more later. But still, as it stands, there’s no experimentation.

Apparently the machine is also network connected by wi-fi. It’s not quite clear to me exactly what it can do, but it can apparently be programmed to re-order new packs when you’re running low. One story also suggests that it will read the QR codes on the packs themselves, and will refuse to juice the packs if they have passed their best-before date.

And now my opinion, which might reflect the fact that this was initially going to be a Pit thread.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Who the hell would buy this fucking piece of shit? The price, the waste, the fact that you’re locked into buying expensive packs from the company? No thanks. No amount of convenience can make up for that. It doesn’t surprise me that Silicon Valley venture capitalists have dumped over $100 million into this monument to “convenience.”

And i say all that as someone who does some juices. We have an Omega J8004 slow juicer, which does a good job, even if it takes a bit of chopping. My wife is actually the one who is most into juicing; i was a bit dubious about getting one, but i admit that i like the product. But a Juicero? Fuck no.

[poll coming]

2

No. And for $3, I can buy an entire jug of fresh squeezed orange juice from the grocer (made by some dude in the produce section with a juicer) which more than meets my “fresh juice” needs.

3

Here’s an article from The New York Times on it, and how the founder managed to get the $120 million in VC money. As you said, the machine costs $700 plus $4-10 for each IV bag of juice. Even the NYT article seemed skeptical of the idea; after all, you can buy cold-pressed juice at the store, or go to a juice bar for a fix if you need it.

It seems a sign that there’s too much money in the VC industry chasing too few actually good ideas.

4

I (like everyone else) voted “I am not currently a juicer, and this is putting me off it forever,” although it’s not quite accurate, in that I do make fruit smoothies on occasion. Part of the benefit of that is using up fruit that’s not otherwise likely to get eaten – the three last strawberries that are a bit squishy, the banana not quite brown enough for banana bread, but too brown to enjoy eating… Costco sells a nice blend of frozen fruit which includes peaches, mangoes and pineapple.

I use a regular blender, so I get the benefit of the fiber as well - that’s the problem, imho, with juicing, you get all the sugar of fruit but none of the fiber.

This seems ridiculous.

5

Note that the machine checks an online database if the pack is fresh; so if your WiFi is down, No Juice For You.

6

Especially since the principal was a failure in his previous business ventures.

7

I would vastly rather have a Vitamix blender. I haven’t bought one yet but I probably will one of these days.

8

I’m puzzled as to how a device that makes juice from stuff in a plastic package can compete on freshness with juice made from, say, fresh fruit & veggies.

And even if it somehow can, $700 + $4 to $10 per serving sounds like a very tough sell.

9

Has anyone seen, or been in the market for, this?

http://www.target.com/p/baby-brezza-formula-pro-one-step-bottle-maker/-/A-14681624?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&CPNG=PLA_Baby%2BShopping&adgroup=SC_Baby&LID=700000001170770pgs&network=g&device=c&location=9018697&gclid=Cj0KEQjw2_23BRDb_qbvzK3X8M8BEiQAg87AFw5BITPQsxvp0veJQKK1K2zQRXDgHzKI6EcU29Oo2SoaAmda8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

Someone wondered if it would make hot chocolate, and someone else replied, “No, but it would make lukewarm chocolate if that’s what you really want.” :stuck_out_tongue:

I’d think it would take less time to just mix the baby formula with warm water from the tap.

10

It sounds like a pointless fucking nightmare.

It seems to me that all you need to do these days is to find a gizmo that no-one actually needs or asks for, connect said sub-ronco piece of shit to the internet, tie the poor purchasing schmuck into a fiercely expensive contract to purchase bespoke consumables and float this to the venture capitalists or drooling plebs of the crowd-funding world.

rinse, fail, repeat.

11

Right, although that’s not really what we’re talking about here. The type of juicers that this competes with aren’t really citrus juicers. In fact, most juicers that will do other fruit and vegetables aren’t actually very good with oranges.

Absolutely. I’m sure that the VC industry has plenty of really smart people, but sometimes it looks like they just throw money at everyone who asks, and make so much from the success stories that they can afford to eat the tens of millions they waste on the losers.

This is true, but as with the observation above about citrus, it doesn’t quite capture the whole picture. For most people who juice seriously as a health thing, fruit actually makes up a minority of what goes into their juices. Green vegetables, root vegetables, and stuff like that makes up the majority of the juices that my wife makes, for example. You still don’t get the fiber, of course, but the vegetable juices don’t have the same level of sugars as the fruit juices. You do need a bit of fruit juice for flavor though, because IMO plain old kale or spinach juice tastes nasty.

That would really piss me off. It’s sort of like the inkjet printer model, applied to juicing. Out of red ink? No black printing. No wi-fi connection? No juice. Complete bullshit.

12

I’m a regular juicer and I voted no way. The cost–for the machine but especially for the juice–is just absurd.

I mostly juice greens and other veggies with a piece of fruit or two tossed in for sweetness. The Omega is great for greens–I stick a piece of dino kale in the feeder shoot and away it goes, no cutting or pushing necessary. I have to cut other veggies and fruit but this is not exactly time consuming. And a big old glass of juice probably costs a couple of bucks tops in ingredients.

I’m a big fan of my Vita Mix blender too. It cost several hundred bucks, but I use it 3-4 times a day, more in the summer, and have for years.

13

How are the juice paks kept fresh in shipping? Are they refrigerated?

14

I almost, but not quite, feel sorry for the investors who backed this company.

15

Consuming juice has been shown to have a negative health impact. Quite a long time ago. I’m surprised anyone continues to do this today even with bizarre new machines. Chew people, chew.

16

Yeah, you can already buy frozen blends of veggies and fruit in the grocery store. Yoplait makes a blend that includes frozen yogurt pieces, for easy smoothies. My niece likes them (so do I). We just empty the pouch into a $25 blender and instant smoothies! You can use any old frozen fruit, really, whether it’s the pricey organic purees or cheap frozen strawberries bags, 5 for ten bucks. It also uses real fruit, if it’s Fancy Friday.

My blender doesn’t get wifi, but otoh, it’s doesn’t have my credit card number.

17

I’m not off the idea of juicing forever, but I am off the idea of juicing like this. I do not see how anything about this process is an improvement. You’re paying a not-insignificant amount of money to make the whole concept worse.

But if there are people who can think of it and make it, and people who are starting to back it, maybe there is a market for it. Not a big one, but it’s expensive enough that maybe they can make money off of it.

But I would almost bet money they won’t.

18

It depends what you’re juicing. And what else you eat. I prefer drinking greens to eating them, and I still get a boat load of fiber in my diet.

19

From cnet: “If you aren’t phased by the Juicero daunting financial commitment, you can order one today, but, per the company’s current policy, only if you live in California.”

Why am I not surprised?

20

I haven’t read the links, but I am still absolutely convinced this is an elaborate April Fool that no-one has admitted to yet. No-one could possibly think this was a good idea. The clincher for me was the wifi connection to check best before dates.

I can buy myself a year’s supply of fresh (i.e. not from concentrate) juice for the cost of one of these machines, never mind the capsules.