CEO of Silicon Valley's $400 Juicer Promises Refunds After Hand-Squeezing Demonstration (techcrunch.com)

Anthony Ha writes via TechCrunch: Jeff Dunn, the former Coca-Cola executive who became CEO of Juicero last year, has responded to a wave of coverage suggesting that the company's juice press isn't all that was promised -- and he's offering dissatisfied customers their money back. A Bloomberg report showed that Juicero's packs could be squeezed by hand, no expensive juicer required. Dunn's response? He doesn't deny that hand-squeezing is a very real possibility, but he does quibble about what you'll find inside, saying it's "nothing but fresh, raw, organic chopped produce" -- see, it's not juice yet because it hasn't been pressed. "What you will get with hand-squeezed hacks is a mediocre (and maybe very messy) experience that you won't want to repeat once, let alone every day," he argued. More importantly, he said, "The value of Juicero is more than a glass of cold-pressed juice. Much more." At the beginning of his post, Dunn said his goal was to "demonstrate the incredible value we know our connected system delivers." And if you're not convinced this is worth $400, well, there's another option for disillusioned Juicero buyers -- Dunn said the company's "Happiness Guarantee" (i.e. its return policy) has been extended to cover anyone who's ever purchased a Juicero Press. So for the next 30 days, anyone who's bought a Press should be able to return it for a full refund.

Comments

Why would he care?

[msauve]

Why would he care if people used a machine or their hands to squeeze a $6+ per 8 oz serving juice pack? It's razors and blades - the profit is in the packs.

Re:Why would he care?

[Duds]

At $400, I suspect the profit is in both in this case.

Re:Why would he care?

[squiggleslash]

Note that $400 is the price to consumers, of which I suspect there aren't many. The real value of the machine is in hotels and other hospitality businesses (they like it because it's easy to clean and maintain, and everything arrives ready chopped), and that's where they're selling. To businesses, the machine costs a cool $1200. The articles I've read suggests that there's no difference between the commercial and personal versions of the machine.

So yeah, I think they're making a huge profit out of the press.

Skip the juice packs also

[Swave An deBwoner]

Remarkable news! You can skip the juice packs too and eat your vegetables and fruits using those whitish sharp things in your mouth.

Re:Skip the juice packs also

[Darinbob]

I drank so much juicero juice I no longer have sharp white things in my mouth, you insensitive clod!

Re:How can we give a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a followup to the earlier article. It's relevant because it's coverage of an excellent example of the insanity in the VC world of anything that can claim to be "innovative" or "disruptive" technology even when it makes no damn sense.

Re:How can we give a fuck?

[stealth_finger]

This article shouldn't be on this website.

Don't click it then.

Re:By hand?

[CustomSolvers2]

LOL. I wish my stupid butler didn't spend all the mod points.

Re:Expensive bullshitmachine

[Aighearach]

I paid under $350 for a leading-brand horizontal masticating juicer and it cold-presses real raw vegetables that I buy from the store, no packs required.

It can even pure almond "milk" (juice) from raw almonds.

For convenience I use a potato slicer to prep most of the veggies. Quick, easy, fresh! No app or VC required.

The packs made of very inorganic plastic

[Viol8]

... which will take centuries to decompose in landfill. So much for the eco living BS.

Re:The packs made of very inorganic plastic

[Overzeetop]

Oh, but you can recycle the packs! They'll even send you a *Free* mailing label to send them back once you fill a box with discarded bags. Of course, you need to cut the pack open and use your hands to remove the pulp remnants before you do that - literally scoop out the goo with your hands and throw it away.

And you've totally missed that this is a zero-cleanup device - it's perfect for when you don't have time to go through the messy process of cleaning a traditional juicer. (but, apparently, have time to go through the messy process of cutting open and cleaning out the bag)

Personally, I still can't get over the $1/oz pricetag on the juice packs that have a shelf life of a week.

Once again a handjob brings down a ceo...

[Leslie43]

Yup.

Re:How can we give a fuck?

[Luthair]

The original shouldn't have been here either. Unfortunately we've moved from technical articles to a dumping ground for tech blogs which are pretty much the lowest on the tech totem pole.

If you look at the article submissions its pretty clear that they should be considered spam as they are often submitted by the authors or site promoters e.g. MojoKid, MirandaKatz, BrianFagioli, Trailrunner7, sciencehabit, the_newsbeagle, Esther Schindler, wisebabo, and a bunch of anonymous submissions.

I think there are two problems, not enough people are marking these as 'spam', and we as readers aren't submitting enough of the articles appropriate for the site.

Re:Expensive bullshitmachine

[hey!]

In other news, VCs can be fucking stupid.

Or they think that consumers are fucking stupid, which is a pretty safe bet. The tricky thing is to find a way in which people will be predictably stupid which nobody has thought of exploiting before.

This thing is pretty much in the right ballpark; it's an attempt to exploit a cultural weakness: people want to add things to their lives that have the same effect as taking things out of their lives -- e.g. they want to eat something that will make them lose weight. Among the few things that actually fits that bill are vegetables. But if you're drinking vegetable juice you aren't eating vegetables any longer; you're eating pre-digested vegetable concentrate.

Trying to get the benefits of vegetables by reducing them to a convenient candy slurry you can slurp down quickly is futile, because many of the key benefits of vegetables that people are pursing are entailed in the fact that they take time to eat and are difficult to digest. But this does't make selling that proposition to consumers a bad idea. Setting consumer off on a futile quest can be profitable, which is why the cosmetic industry doesn't just pitch looking good -- it tells women they need to pursue eternal youth.

The trick is to package futility so it's convenient and price it/pitch it so that it is either an impulse buy or an object of intense longing. That's not easy. Keurig got all the parameters right, starting with the story they tell you about how your life will be different with their product. You get up in the morning in a caffeine-withdrawal fog, you pop the pod into the machine and your coffee comes out. Then you toss the pod in the trash. What they are selling is the will-o-the-wisp of convenience, and they've managed to sell it at a staggering markup. The truth is that it's just as easy to make that cup of coffee with an Aeropress, especially if you have an electric tea kettle, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

Re: How can we give a fuck?

[Enigma2175]

According to the article, it's so they can recall the packs. Here is the quote from the CEO:

"The first closed loop food safety system that allows us to remotely disable Produce Packs if there is, for example, a spinach recall. In these scenarios, we’re able to protect our consumers in real-time."

I don't know about you, but I have never been affected by a food "recall" and I don't know why they would anticipate such a need happening. I know there have been recalls of food (even the spinach in their example) but they are usually pretty narrow in scope and in my view shouldn't need a machine enforcing them. If you put bad spinach into your product, how about sending me an email, or calling me, or publicizing it through the media? Once I buy something I would like to do what I want with it, in most situations I no longer want the company involved. If I want to squeeze expired packets or packets from another manufacturer, that's my business.