Woman’s Way Self Made with Claire Scanlan of Jump Juice Bars

Tell me a bit about yourself and your self-made company.

I’m Claire, the co-founder and operations director at Jump Juice Bars, a wellness company I founded with my husband in 2003. We have 24 retail outlets across the country which sell healthy, grab ‘n’ go snacks such as juices, smoothies, wellness shots, nuts, to support health-conscious individuals while on-the-go.

We’ve also just launched Jump Juice Direct which enables our existing fans and new customers to order cases of our juices, smoothies and shots online and have them delivered direct to their doors. It’s the perfect time for us to introduce this offering, not only because we’ve had to innovate to overcome the challenges of Covid-19 - specifically lower footfall in and temporary closure of our retail settings - but also because as a brand our drive comes from supporting those who want to make better choices to look after their health and this has never been so important given the current climate.

What made you take the bold step of setting up Jump Juice?

My husband Charlie and I have always been huge advocates of healthy eating so the concept of developing a juice bar was initiated when we were living in Dublin in the early 2000s and finding it increasingly difficult to find healthy, ‘ready to go’ food and drinks when out and about. At the time, the market was reacting somewhat, but mostly just in larger cities such as Dublin and Cork, and even then the options were limited, very expensive and in many instances, un-appetising.

We knew we wanted to take our passion for nutritious, tasty food and solve this problem, not only for health-conscious individuals like us, but also to make it easy for consumers across the board to make good choices. We identified juice as a great place to start! Juice and smoothies taste great, while also being a source of our required daily nutrients and juice also gave us plenty of scope to come up with an impressively versatile menu with options to suit everyone.

I remember we first hit off to the health hotspots of the United States, Canada and Australia and picked up some great insights on what to do and of course what not to do. We identified some businesses we really admired and others that we felt could be more environmentally-friendly. We returned to Waterford, brought our findings together and opened our first Juice Bar in the city centre in 2003. The rest is history as they say.

Tell readers your typical day in the office?

Being self-employed coupled with our business being spread across both a head office base and 24 stores across the country, there isn’t really a typical day, but possibly a typical week.

The early part of the week is usually spent at our head office in Cork, meeting and supporting our colleagues there. Our Accounts, Payroll, Operations and Marketing functions are based here and all of these team members work closely together with input from myself and Charlie.

From midweek on it’s a mixture of store visits, liaising with suppliers, seeking out new opportunities and this can take me anywhere depending on the task at hand. New store openings or launching a project like our newest, jumpjuicedirect.ie, need extra attention and would dictate a very un-typical day.

Can you tell readers a bit more about your products and the process behind making them?

Our juicing method is something we’re really proud of as it means there is less reason for our ingredients to go to waste and it locks in as much goodness as possible. We cold-press. It’s a process of juice extraction that minimises the impact heat can have on the nutrients of the juice. Once bottled, the drinks go through a process called high-pressure processing which gently preserves the juices without any additives or heat. These processes together help to deliver a shelf life of up to 45 days.

Typically, if you were to choose any juice off-shelf in your local store, it may last this long but only as it contains artificial preservatives. Our juice is distinctly different because it tastes great and contains only the best for your body.

We’re also really proud to source locally - whether that is supporting Irish producers where we can or connecting with Irish suppliers to source our more exotic ingredients. This means we can proactively inform our customers on where the ingredients in their juices and smoothies come from and we can assure them that they have been produced in a way that is as good for the environment as possible.

What have been your highlights to date?

The last 17 years have been incredible, it’s hard to pinpoint just a handful of highlights.

Overall, we’ve grown to become a well-loved brand with Irish consumers, and we have a great geographical spread across our 24 locations, but we’ve known for some time that there are some fans who simply can’t reach us every day so launching Jump Juice Direct in lockdown is certainly huge for us. It’s a natural extension of our desire to bring our delicious and nutritious offering to Irish consumers and it makes sense for us as our natural, gentle preservation method keeps our juices fresh for up to 45 days, so our customers don’t need to make daily orders.

A really cool element of Jump Juice Direct is that customers can set up a recurring subscription so without even having to think about it they’re proactively looking after their nutritional needs.

We can reach our regulars, many of whom haven’t been able to get to us for their daily dose of goodness, but this new offering also opens us up to the audience who know and love Jump Juice Bars but don’t have one nearby, and finally, it allows us to bring our goods to a brand new audience – those looking for convenience, value and nutrition during the lockdown and beyond.

The biggest highlight is looking back and being really happy with the team and who we have hired. We really have the best people working for us – both behind the scenes at head office and at store level - and without them Jump Juice Bars wouldn’t be what it is today.

How important is a support network when self-employed?

I often say to Charlie that I don’t think I could do what we do without him! We work really well together and our passion to bring healthy snacks to people binds us on the toughest of days. It’s definitely an added bonus too that we are married, as we can bounce ideas off one another be it 8:00am on a Monday or 8:00pm on a Friday, and also share our successes together.

We also recognise if the other needs a break and can encourage each other to take a few hours out when that happens. We have a young family too, so we do try to watch out for each other and ensure we’re getting enough time together as a family but also spending time individually with the boys.

What are the pros and cons of being self-employed?

The pros definitely outweigh the cons for me! But that said, the cons can be frustrating. A con at the moment would be the difficult trading period that Covid-19 has brought and having to get through it by making difficult decisions. On the flipside, the pros are that having to make these tough decisions shapes you and helps you grow and develop. Being self-employed means that you and only you are in control of your own way forward.

Do you have any words of wisdom for those wanting to start their own company? 

In my experience, it’s important that your passionate about the industry you’re in – there will be hard days so believing in what you’re doing and why you’re doing it will be what gets you through.

Second to passion is research. Investing on research before we opened our first Jump Juice Bar was the best start to our journey. It opened our eyes to the businesses doing it right and the businesses we felt could be doing it better. We spoke with owners and were aware of their pain points and also spoke to customers and found what they loved! Our research hasn’t stopped – it never will - and monitoring trends is core to our success to date. We have to react to what consumers want quickly.

What are your future plans?

Well that’s simple! Continue to add to our portfolio of stores across the country and grow our direct-to-consumer offering.

For more information on Jump Juice Direct visit jumpjuicedirect.ie