Juice Up is the brainchild of Jon Ollereshaw, eco-warrior, outdoor lover and keen cyclist. He came to Business Hothouse, a WSX Enterprise project, with his idea for a sustainable pressed juice company. After attending a grants webinar and several 1-2-1s he was helped by the organisation to apply for a startup grant. The grant application was successful and Juice Up was founded.

Juice Up is an eco-friendly healthy drink producer which sells fresh raw cold-pressed juices in glass bottles. They offer a delivery service to local residents, schools, companies and coffee shops in the Haywards Heath area. They also sell smoothies with a twist at local markets and events from their eco smoothie bikes.

They have also set up an e-commerce site so they can offer weekly juice delivery subscriptions as well as one-off purchases. Various packages are available including cleanses where customers just consume juice for 1,3 or 5 days.

Jon had always been employed before approaching The Business Hothouse and was keen to get support for various aspects of running his own business. He found the business support that he received “very engaging and helpful”.

Scaling up

His main reason for applying for the funding was to purchase a Bio Mk7 Commercial cold press juicer and he found the support he received in this process invaluable.

“I had numerous discussions with Rachel who really helped me pull all the paperwork together and understand how best to complete it. This was a complicated process and one which took time and I do not think I would have been successful without the support from The Business Hothouse.”

The funding has helped him purchase the much-needed juicer enabling him to create juice of better quality, ramp up juice production and subsequently fulfil more orders and grow the business.

He thinks he will soon need to employ someone to help produce the juice and help with deliveries, as well as people to help with various events and festivals. Because the juice is of better quality, he has also reduced production costs per bottle.

You can find out more about Juice Up on their website – www.juiceup.life or follow them on Instagram or Facebook

The Business Hot House

The Business Hot House is a three-year (January 2020 to June 2022) Business Support Programme part-funded by the European Union.

It brings together 6 specialist support providers to fill the much-felt gap in business support provision in the Coast to Capital region.

If you are a pre-start organisation, startup or SME in this area and would like to find out more about how the project can help you, please visit The Business Hot House section of the WSX Enterprise website.