FSR May 2023

SPONSORED BY VITAMIX COMMERCIAL

For Smoothie King, Being Consistently Good Is the Formula for Growth A partnership with Vitamix Commercial has been vital to consistency and speed.

It may be easier to find labor in 2023, but chal lenges around turnover and training have con tinued, which can compromise beverage consis tency and brand loyalty. Dallas-based Smoothie King Franchises Inc., a leading contender in the smoothie bar category, has a tried-and-true remedy for that. Even dur ing the pandemic, the brand recorded double-digit growth, opening 263 new stores in 2020 and 109 in 2021. For Smoothie King, beverage consistency, speed of service, and the overall customer ex perience are all tied closely to its choice of com mercial blender, The Quiet One® by Vitamix Com mercial. Each Smoothie King location operates multiple Vitamix® blenders powering through tough ingredients, back-to-back, to prepare up to 200 smoothies per day. Back in the 1990s, when smoothies were rap idly gaining in popularity and Smoothie King was establishing itself as a leading chain restau rant, Vitamix was one of the few suppliers able to deliver blending equipment that could meet the high-performance characteristics the restau rant required. When Vitamix introduced The Quiet One in 2010, Smoothie King embraced the blender as a new standard for power, speed of service, consis tency, and reliability.

Smoothie King also values The Quiet One because it’s quiet—quiet enough that employ ees and customers can carry on a conversa tion while it runs. The blender’s sound enclo sure seals with a twist-lock design that holds the enclosure in place. Rubber components be tween the upper and lower parts of the enclo sure aid in the seal and dampen vibration. In addition, The Quiet One’s motor is suspended on a system of rubber grommets, further re ducing sound.

“It’s important, especially when you have four–six blenders going simultaneously,” says Lori Primavera, vice president of research and development and product management at Smoothie King. “Without that technology, Smoothie King locations would be extremely noisy. For the store environment, you want to hear the blender—because it is a smoothie place—but you don’t want it to be so loud that you cannot have a conversation.” The partnership between Smoothie King and Vitamix Commercial has been a winning formula for both brands. Smoothie King is now the largest smoothie brand in the world, with more than 1,300 loca tions, and Vitamix Commercial has a presence in 130 countries. ◗

Today, each of The Quiet One blenders that Vitamix manufac tures for Smoothie King is outfitted with custom programs opti mized for Smoothie King’s blend profile, consistency, and texture. The programming also aids in speed of service, minimizes runtimes, and ensures efficient execution. Staff members just press one button on the front of the machine, and the programming handles the rest. “So, if you go to a Smoothie King in Austin, Texas, and a Smoothie King in Miami, Florida, and you order the same smoothie, then you are going to get the same experience,” says Lisa Klein, vice presi dent, global commercial and international household sales, Vitamix.

To learn more, visit vitamix.com/us/en_us/commercial/ourdifference .

VITAMIX COMMERCIAL (2)

MAY 2023 | BEVERAGE SOLUTIONS & EQUIPMENT MAY 2023 BEVERAGE SOLUTIONS & EQUIPMENT 84

FSRMAGAZINE.COM

108