UPDATE: The winner is……David! Congratulations your name was selected, and you have won one free juice or smoothie courtesy of The Juice Truck. Thank you to everyone who commented. Stay tuned we have more comment posts with prizes coming up.
The fresh, vibrant juices of the world have hit the streets of Vancouver in the form of a truck. Two, young, local entrepreneurs have brought the flavours of the world back home to Vancouver. Zach Berman and Ryan Slater are the masterminds behind The Juice Truck, a mobile juice company selling gourmet fresh pressed juice, smoothies, and juice shots – whenever possible they use organic and locally sourced produce. They’re juicing it up in a permanent parking spot at the corner of Water Street and Abbott Street in Gastown.
Zach and Ryan have been friends since elementary school. After high school, the two went separate ways but stayed close friends and reconvened on a year-long backpacking trip. Inspired by their travels through Asia and their encounters with locals in the fresh markets, Zach and Ryan wanted to find a way to share the flavours and experiences.
Social media has played a significant role in promoting their business, even before they launched the truck. They’re active on Twitter and have their menu posted on Facebook, where you can also check out fan photos and read reviews.
The Juice Truck joined Invoke for #foodcartfridays and they were a huge hit.
I spent some time chatting with Zach about their vision behind the Juice Truck, the street food scene in Vancouver, and how social media has played an essential role in launching and promoting their business:
What was your inspiration behind starting The Juice Truck?
We have both been avid juice and smoothie drinkers for a long time, probably dating back to watching the Jack LaLanne Juice man infomercials back in high school. We have tossed around ideas for going into business together for years, but it wasn’t until a trek through the Himalayas that the juice truck was born. We took off for a year to backpack through Asia, mostly through India and Nepal. Two weeks into the adventure we found ourselves snowed in, in a small Nepalese village in the Annapurna Mountain range called Manang. We noticed the locals were always drinking a vibrant, sweet smelling, orange drink. This orange drink was made from sea-buckthorn berries and supplied these high altitude locals with most of their nutrients. This juice, so essential to their health, sparked an idea. How many similar juices are out there, that we don’t know about, and how can we bring them back to Canada? We spent the next year traveling, and never went long without seeking the nearest juice stand. We were back in Canada at the end of summer 2010, and from there, it was game on to bring The Juice Truck to life.
What do you love about street food?
Just as juice stands were a big part of our travels, so was street food. Street food in many ways defined the cultures of the cities and towns we were visiting. Everywhere we went, there was a new, amazing, exotic food to experience that was cheap, appetizing, and available to the masses. We loved it. Though different to the Chai Wallahs, and market vendors of Asia, the street food in Vancouver is dynamic and diverse. I feel the street food vendors are bringing a new, and enlivening experience of food and community to Vancouver.
How do you think Vancouver compares to other street food cities like Portland, and New York?
The Vancouver street food program is very new compared to the programs in other cities. I think in many ways, we are still figuring it out. The direction for street food in Vancouver is growing in a very positive and exciting direction. I think in two to three years it will be even more exciting.
What is the importance of using social media for food trucks? How has it helped you in promoting The Juice Truck?
Social media has played a major role in the growth of food trucks. Given our mobile nature, social media creates accessibility between the food truck and the customer. It helps in creating a relationship and a community, and allows for a quick way to promote and communicate our brand and our product.
Contest
The Juice Truck is giving away one free juice or smoothie to one lucky Invoke reader.
To enter, leave us a comment at the bottom of this post sharing your best social media tip for budding entrepreneurs looking to start their own business.
One lucky winner will be drawn August 15.. Contest has been extended to August 19!
