With the improve of living standard and health awareness, fruit juice consumption is growing, and the juice market is booming. Many people want to engage in fruit juice production business. To start a fruit juice factory, you need not only the money, workshop, machineries, staffs, but the knowledge on market, management, and regulations. Here I concluded a few tips that help you to start a fruit juice factory, and avoid common problems.

Set a target market

Fruit juice has many types: fresh fruit juice, concentrated fruit juice, NFC juice, cold pressed juice, and fruity drinks. Customers’ tastes change all the time. It is a clear trend that people care more about health, more natural, less artificial. Pure fruit juice and high-end fruit juice are accepted by more and more people. New categories like energy drinks, organic drinks and Smoothies are also good opportunities.

Determine your business range

You can operate the whole fruit juice business, including orchard plantation, fruit pretreatment, juice extraction, concentration, and sterilization, fruit juice blending and filling, distribution and selling. But most fruit juice industry practitioners only engage in part of the industry. Many juice factory owners purchase fruits and process them into concentrated fruit juice and sell them to juice drink manufacturers. Juice drink manufactures mainly engage in juice blending, packing, and branding.

The concentrated fruit juice are packed in barrels and sold to juice drink manufacturers

Apply for business certificate

You need to contact local Office of Government Commerce to learn about what certificates you need, perhaps an employer identification number, tax permit, license to sell certain products. In some regions, government requires food manufactures to acquire some health permits, like food handler permits, food manager certificates, food enterprise licenses, etc.

Learn about the local laws on fruit juice or drinks. For example, the US government dictates that raw juice can be sold to customers via retail or delivery, but not wholesale to third parties that are going to resell it. If you want to wholesale, you need to process the raw juice with pasteurization or HPP. Japan government requires companies sale and produce raw fruit juice in the same place. In Australia and China, the government have no restrictions on raw juice. Besides, make sure your sanitary condition and safety measures conform to the local regulations.

Find raw material suppliers

To operate a fruit juice business, you need stable supply of fruits, bottles, ingredients, etc. If you don’t have an orchard, you need to contact local farmer’s market or fruit suppliers. Some fruit suppliers only supply certain kind of fruits like oranges, other can supply all kinds of fruits. You should compare the quality and price, and the transportation cost.

Build a juice factory workshop

You can rent or buy a juice factory workshop. The workshop should be large enough to store raw materials and products, hold a fruit juice production line and juice filling plant, and allow staffs to work and move freely. If its available, set a bathroom and rest area. Contact a commercial real estate to find a suitable factory space.

Install a fruit juice production line

A fruit juice production line is composed of fruit sorting machine, fruit washing machine, fruit peeling and extracting machine, fruit pulper machine, fruit juice extractor, juice homogenizer and degasser, etc. Up to now, you can get the raw fruit juice. Then you can use pasteurizer to eliminate the bacteria and a concentrator to make concentrated juice, which can be sold to juice drink manufacturers. If you plan to make final fruit juice products, you need to blend the fruit juice with some additives, and fill it into bottles with a juice filling machine. Different fruit juices need different equipment, you can contact our sales for specific advices.

A high efficiency production line can save production cost and make more profits. A inventory control system can help you trace the inventory of raw materials and products, and a bar code system to facilitate storage and retrieval.

Marketing, distribution and sale

Market you products to retailers, such as convenience stores, restaurant, supermarket, patrol station, grocery store chain, parks, etc. Also, you can find agencies in charge of the distribution and sales in certain areas. If you only sell concentrated juice to juice drink manufactures, you’d better establish long-term cooperation with several major manufacturers.

Brand your products through website, TV, media, outdoor advertising, event planning, and trade exhibition. Design appealing packages and new tastes to attract customers.

Juice factory management

Draw up a business plan that includes production cost, labor cost, management cost, expected profits. List the potential raw material suppliers and distribution channels. Analyze the competitors, target customers, and existing products. Arrange the production, marketing, and management department. Assign every department and staff specific tasks and targets.

To start a juice factory is not as complicated as it seems. As I mentioned above, you can engage in parts of the fruit juice production. You can make sterilized concentrated juice and sell them to juice drink manufactures, without considering the package or marketing. Also, you can start from a small-scale factory, which doesn’t need much management, and gradually scale it up. If you want suggestions or want to buy our equipment, please ask questions through the form below.