BUFFALO, N.Y. — Juice bars are a thing in most urban environments across the world. The last decade saw a huge spike in juice related businesses, including here in Western New York.
But what makes cold-pressed juice different than regular juice? What is it?
"The definition of cold-pressed juice is a two-step process," said Eric Wettlaufer, CEO of Goodnature Products Inc, a Buffalo-based manufacturing firm. "It's simple, gentle shredding, and then a slow pressing in a filter cloth. That's what gives you a really smooth juice that's really palatable, really healthy and it looks good on the shelf."
As it turns out, Goodnature is the world leader in manufacturing cold-pressed juice machines, and they're based in Buffalo
"My dad is an aerospace engineer. He had a bit of an identity crisis and he quit his company," Wettlaufer said. "He moved into the woods and started hanging out with farmers and somebody asked him to build a cider press, and it was just happenstance."
For over 40 years Goodnature has been manufacturing presses for a variety of juicing operations. The company has sold products to juice makers in over 70 countries across the world.
"There isn't one in Antarctica but you can bet that in every major city in most industrialized countries there's a Goodnature press," Wettlaufer said.
The company manufacturers juicers that fit in small juice bars in New York City and scale up to industrial juicers that barely fit on a flat-bed truck. The boom of juice bars in the last decade has meant big business for Goodnature.
"It's a healthy, thriving industry and we keep getting leads for new business every day from passionate people opening juice bars," Wettlaufer said.
Now the engineering wizards at good nature are working on tools that restaurants can utilize for their dishes if they want to incorporate fresh juice as a menu item.
"A restaurant owner, if he does anything with juice, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to do that with really good, premium cold press with Goodnature juice," Wettlaufer said.
Every single machine that is shipped out leaves the warehouse with a "Built with pride in Buffalo, New York" sticker.
"We are very much a Buffalo company," he said.