Commercial Juicers

In a café environment, the distinction between cold press and centrifugal Commercial Juicers comes down to extraction method and the resulting juice quality. Choosing the right one will depend on what your priorities are in terms of speed, nutritional value, and overall flavour.

Cold press Commercial Juicers operate by slowly crushing fruits and vegetables to extract the juice. The process is a little slower than with a centrifugal juicer, but it captures the flavour incredibly well, while also giving you less foam and retaining a high degree of the nutritional value. They’re ideal for especially health-conscious customers, and can also be used to make juices that you want to keep in the refrigerator for longer to serve at a later date.

In contrast, centrifugal Commercial Juicers use high-speed spinning blades to shred produce instead of pressing it. The juice and pulp are then separated and the juice comes out, ready to be served, significantly more quickly. These models are ideal for cafes or restaurants that need to produce juice on demand, or in bulk. The drawback with these models is that the aeration the juice gets during the fruit’s processing can mean it doesn’t have as crisp a flavour, and generally isn’t as shelf stable for as long as cold-pressed juices.

Automatic Commercial Juicers, as the name suggests, can significantly streamline the process of getting fresh juice out to your customers. They come with additional features that reduce the amount of staff intervention required, like wide feed chutes, continuous pulp ejection, and powerful motors for faster turnover. They generally require less effort to empty and reload, which helps to speed up preparation and reduces the need for pre-cutting. These models of commercial juicer make it far easier for juice bars and cafés to keep up with a busy flow of orders, ensuring that the juice is fresh, made to order, and served on demand without bottlenecks or delays at the counter.

Where you place your juicer will largely depend on your kitchen’s overall setup and purpose, along with whether you’re a dedicated juice bar, or simply offer them as a part of a wider menu. You’ll also need to consider what kind of juicer you have, and where you’ll dispose of fruit and vegetable waste between prepping each juice.

Typically, we recommend setting it up on top of something like a dedicated station or a fridge that gives you easy access to your produce. An underbench fridge is a good option, as it gives you a solid, flat surface to place the juicer on, along with fast access to ingredients. Alternatively, you may want to have it front-of-house, though we recommend this more for places where noise isn’t as much of an issue as the motors can be loud for some establishments. This location also lends itself well to bars making non-alcoholic drinks and cocktails, along with making the process of serving customers faster and more efficient.

Wellness cafés and juice bars are incorporating a variety of innovative juice formats to cater to the ever-changing demands and health trends that modern customers have. From wellness shots like ginger and turmeric, to immune-boosting green juices that incorporate the fresh flavours of fruit, vegetables and herbs, crafting your menu is personal. Many cafes are also starting to offer their own take-away juices and wellness shots. Whether you offer juice flights that people can use one a day over the space of a few days, or opt for something unique like savoury juices that incorporate tomato, cucumber, and greens, new formats help cafés and juice bars stay ahead of the curve.

Commercial Juicers go beyond breakfast drinks alone, chefs are increasingly using Commercial Juicers as versatile tools for culinary innovation, too. With the number of people going teetotal increasing, you can use Commercial Juicers to create unique flavours to mix with non-alcoholic spirits and bitters and craft your own bases for your in-house signature cocktails and mocktails.

When it comes to cooking, Commercial Juicers are used to extract the full and intense flavours of vegetables and herbs, giving you the ability to make concentrates for savoury reductions, sauces, soups, or vinaigrettes. This flexibility makes it easy for venues to create unique menu items that highlight freshness, seasonality, and culinary creativity.

If fast-turnover, or high-volume is your key priority, a centrifugal juicer is likely your best choice. They can process bulk ingredients in a rapid timeframe, making it easy to adjust flavours and combinations quickly, while still being able to move onto the next customer quickly. For the best quality flavour and freshness, you could also consider pre-preparing juice with a cold-press juicer before breakfast buffet rushes, then offer custom juices as a premium offering with the same machine.

A slow juicer, or cold-press juicer, is the perfect fit when your menu is designed around drinks that require a balance of flavour and texture. Some juices are inherently thicker than others due to the varying water and sugar content of different fruits and vegetables. The slow extraction process minimises heat and oxidation, which in turn gives you juice that’s naturally thicker, richer, and more flavourful than something like a centrifugal juicer would. So if you’re planning on offering wellness shots, or drinks that feature delicate ingredients where you want to preserve as much taste and nutrition as possible, slow Commercial Juicers are an ideal choice.

When you’re investing in any sort of kitchen appliance, you’ll likely want it to achieve more than one purpose where possible. Commercial Juicers can deliver more than just refreshing drinks, and can be utilised for everything from detox juice plans, wellness shots, and make the bases for reductions for sauces, dressings, and jus.