Janine Allis - Franchisor -
Founder, CEO & Managing Director of
Boost Juice
Janine Allis (born 1965) is an
Australian businesswoman who is the founder of Boost Juice and part-owner of
Retail Zoo, which is the parent company of Boost Juice, Salsa's Fresh Mex
Grill and Cibo Espresso.
Allis started Boost Juice from her home in 2000. The first Boost Juice store
was located in Adelaide, South Australia, and the franchise is now in 14
countries.
Allis appeared as a "shark" on the Australian version of the TV show Shark
Tank. Apart from her directorship with Retail Zoo, Allis is also a Director
of Michael Hill Jeweller. She is also the author of the book The Accidental
Entrepreneur - The Juicy Bits ISBN 978-0-7303-2773-8.
In 2019, Allis competed in the sixth season of Australian Survivor. She was
eliminated on Day 44 and finished in sixth place. (Source:
Wikipedia)
I was born in the Ferntree Gully
Hospital, in the east of Melbourne. I was raised in the semi rural (at the
time) suburb of Knoxfield in a very small house. I shared a bedroom with my
two sisters. I was the youngest of four children.
I went to a tech college called
Knox Technical College. It no longer exists. The school was very casual, we
called the teachers by their first name and there were no uniforms.
I finished there at 16. I loved playing Netball.
My
passion was to travel the world, I knew that there was more to life than the
little suburb I was living in. This adventure took me from being a camp
counselor in San Francisco to being a nanny in France and a stewardess on
David Bowie’s yacht. I returned to Australia 7
years later as a single Mum with a 2 year old boy.
Returning to Australia, I met and
married ‘the one’ Jeff and we founded Boost Juice
in 2000 when I was 32.
(Source: Janine Allis
& The Examined Life Video)
Experiences & Opportunities
Allis started working at the age of
17 as a media assistant at advertising agency McCann-Erickson. She went on
to do modelling as well as working as an assistant gym manager. Her early
career also included roles such as a nanny in France, a promotions executive
in Portugal as well as a camp counsellor in the USA. Allis has also worked
as a stewardess on David Bowie's yacht, a senior manager for a Singapore
cinema chain, a publicist for United International Pictures, a publisher, an
author, and a touring agent for USA comedians.(Source:
Wikipedia)
Finding the gap
A trip to the US with her husband and three children saw the birth of the
idea for Boost.
As a time-poor mother, she was constantly frustrated with the lack of quick
and healthy food options. “Most ideas start with, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if ‘,
right? Like, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if I had a wallet that could work with my
iPhone, so I didn’t have to have a wallet and an iPhone?’ ‘Wouldn’t it be
good if, when I went out, I had other choices other than just chips or fries
or whatever?’” she says.
“So we went over [to the US], and I saw the category of the juice and I
thought that was a healthy option. I didn’t like what I saw in America. I
didn’t think it fitted with how I would see a healthy concept being. So I
really came back with a smoothie and juice concept in my head, and then
literally got the computer out, typed the words ‘business plan’ and off I
went.”
She coupled this original idea with an insatiable competitive spirit. From
here her idea quickly progressed to reality.(Source:
MarketingMag)
All of Allis’ knowledge and skills came from on-the-
job learning and a natural business mindset.
“My business course was my business. I had a very curious mind and I had the
ability to fix things quickly, and problem solving, and puzzles. That’s how
my brain worked, which I didn’t realise at the time, particularly because I
was just having too much fun at 16 to really find out what the hell my brain
was doing,” she says.“That worked out really well
for starting a business from scratch with the systems and processes and
everything else that’s required to do a business.”
Allis and her husband opened the first store in Adelaide in 2000.
As she lived in Melbourne, she got her father-in- law to sit out the front
of the prospect store site to get a handle on the foot traffic and
demographic. She admits their naivety and inexperience in retail led to
countless mistakes.
“We did probably a terrible negotiation and it was a crap site. The site
itself was OK, but it was a Heritage building, so we couldn’t get
air-conditioning to it and Adelaide’s really hot. So you know, there were
certainly a lot of lessons in that one.”
Allis puts the buzz around the brand in its early days in Adelaide down to
their strong radio campaigns. She utilised her husband’s background in radio
and pursued a blanket campaign with SA FM.
“It had like a 72.3% reach of our target market, which is just unheard of.
Nothing has that, so we really leveraged that. We were driving in there at
six o’clock in the morning giving them smoothies and wheat grass, and really
became a friend to the station to try and get people talking about it. It
was good in that respect and we had people coming for kilometres for our
smoothies and juices because there was just nothing like it, and Adelaide
was the first thing. We had long queues, and we couldn’t go wrong.”(Source:
MarketingMag)
After her success in growing her juice business, Allis and her husband
decided to diversify their operations by forming a holding company in 2007
called Retail Zoo which they use to acquire and grow other retail food
chains.
The first chain that Retail Zoo acquired was the four-outlet Mexico food
chain called Salsa's Fresh Mex Grill in 2007. In 2012, Retail Zoo acquired
the 20-outlet Cibo Espresso for AU$15 million. In 2014, Retail Zoo start an
American-style hamburger diner chain called Betty's Burgers & Concrete
Company.
In 2010, the Riverside Company purchased an equity stake in Retail Zoo for
an undisclosed amount with Allis remaining in charge. Four years later,
Riverside sold their stake to Bain Capital. After the acquisition, Bain
owned 70% of the company while Allis owns the rest.(Source:
Wikipedia)
What were
three big events – in the family circle or on the world stage or in your
reading life, for example – you can now say, had a great effect on you and
influenced you in your career path?
• Meeting David Puttnam (producer of Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express,
Killing Fields ) on a boat in the Caribbean.
• It was David Puttnam, who was a friend of David Bowie (Janine worked on
David Bowie’s yacht), who introduced me to the CEO of Village Roadshow,
which stated my career in retail.
• From there I met my husband who is the most influential person in my life.
(Source:
Booktopia)
Did You Know?
From the kitchen table in her Melbourne home in 2000 to 175 Boost
Juice stores in Australia and New Zealand within 4 years, Janine
Allis is just one of Australia’s triumphant stories. In their first
5 years, Boost Juice achieved a phenomenal 95% consumer awareness
rating.
By 2007, Boost was in UK, Chile, Kuwait, Singapore, Indonesia and
Thailand and succeeded growing their bottom line by over 20% through
the GFC. Concurrently, Janine went on to acquire four Salsas Fresh
Mex Grill stores in 2007, expanding out to nearly 50 stores with a
new store opening every 6 weeks during 2012 and basking in a 7%
growth in sales in all financial years from 2009 – 2012. 18 years
later, she has added Retail Zoo, CIBO, Expresso, Shark Tank
Investor, Michael Hill and author to her accolades and you can see
why she is a testament to how one person, a kitchen table and
unwavering passion will take you to new heights. (Source:
Franchise Simply)
"Boost Juice bars is one of the
largest juice bars in the world. With over 500 stores in 14 countries. My
vision was to “do retailing differently”, delivering a unique customer
experience based on the “love life” philosophy and along the way getting
more fruit and vegetables in people’s diet, which we are achieving, with
over 2 million smoothies or juices sold every month.
I feel honoured to have received numerous retail, franchise and business
awards including Telstra Business Women of the Year, Amex Retailer of the
Year, Awarded Exporter of the Year and BRW named me one of fifteen people to
have helped change the way Australia does business over the last 35 years.
Over the years we have expanded the Australian business incorporating other
brands under the retail entity Retail Zoo this includes: Salsas Fresh Mex
Grill, CIBO Espresso, the Italian espresso bar franchise that has wowed
Adelaide for 17 years, the very cool Betty’s Burgers & CONCRETE CO. Retail
Zoo has over 600 stores and almost 7000 people working across the four
businesses for which I am now a Director.
I’m a working mother of four, best selling author of “The Accidental
Entrepreneur”, a Shark on Channel TEN’s Shark Tank, a champion contestant on
Australian Survivor Season 4 and co-host of the 5 star rated podcast
“Superwomen we ain’t”.
My life is hectic so I understand firsthand the demands the world can put on
an individual! I’m an advocate for a healthy lifestyle – I maintain a daily
yoga practice, am a very average surfer, horse rider and tennis player… but
love doing all of it…"
(Source: Janine Allis)
2018 - Excellence in
Franchise Innovation - Franchise Council of Australia; Excellence in
International Franchising - Franchise Council of Australia
2017 - Inside Retail -
Innovation Initiative of the Year Award; LinkedIn - Named as a "LinkedIn
Influencer"
2016 - CSIA -
Australian Service Excellence Award Friendly Award; National Retail Award -
Innovation Excellence Awards - Winner
2015 - Honorary Member
- Key International Honour Society; Business Award - InStyle and Audi Women
of Style Awards; Excellence in Women's Leadership: Victoria The Australian
Business Awards; Australian Established Franchisor of the Year - Boost Juice
Bars MYOB FCA Excellence in Franchising Awards; Excellence in International
Franchising - Boost Juice International MYOB FCA Excellence in Franchising
Awards; Franchise Hall of Fame Inductee - MYBO FCA Excellence in Franchising
Awards
2012 - Australian
Export Heroes Award - Export Council of Australia
2011 - Finalist - Fast
100 BRW
2010 - International
Francise Award - Franchise Council of Australia
2007 - Franchise Award
- National Retailers Association Awards - BOQ
2005 - Franchisor of
the Year - Finalist Price Waterhouse Coopers; Women in Franchising -
Finalist Price Waterhouse Coopers; International Women's Award - Finalist
Verve Cliquot; Franchisor of the Year Award - Victoria Price Waterhouse
Coopers; Woman of the Year in Franchising - Price Waterhouse Coopers
2004 - Victorian
Business Woman of the Year - Telstra; Woman of the Year Telstra
YouTube: The Examined Life with Matt Purcell
Janine Allis - $2 to $2 billion, Boost Juice, Humble Beginnings PART 1 https://youtu.be/8KDfKKpDscE
YouTube: /strong>
The Examined Life with Matt Purcell
Janine Allis - Entrepreneurs, Why Most People Don't Go The Distance PART 2 https://youtu.be/EV1x2prezZY
YouTube: Top Four Traits of
Successful Franchisors: Boost Juice Founder Janine Allis https://youtu.be/oSUo8ZCotaY
YouTube:
Janine Allis - A snapshot of my presentation at Women in Leadership /
Business Event https://youtu.be/6LQsrv-QNS8
A
new Boost drink? Your Pitch to Janine
Primary
Middle
Secondary
Australian
Curriculum General Capability:
Numeracy Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Critical and creative thinking Australian
Curriculum General Capability:Personal and social capability
Cooperative
Learning Activity
1. Currently
[2020], Boost Juice has 43
different types of juices. Look at and study these different types of
juices.
In an Excel
spreadsheet, list all the juices and their
Energy (kJ and Cal)
Fat
Carbohydrate
Dietary fibre
Protein
Fat
Sugars
Sodium
2. Which
juice has the highest fibre? The highest protein? Lowest sugars? Highest kJ?
Which juice in your opinion is the "best" in terms of nutrients? Why? Give
reasons. Share with a partner.
3. Are all
the juices "healthy"? Explain to a group of 4 students.
4. If
possible, you are to go to a Boost Juice Bar and copy down the cost for each
medium drink. Put these prices into your Excel spreadsheet.
5.
Analyse. Which is the cheapest?
Which is the dearest? Which is the best priced juice? Share with a partner.
6. You
are now to create a new juice. One that you and your fellow students would
enjoy and spend their money on.
7. List the
ingredients of your new juice. Make up the recipe quantities [how much milk?
ice? fruit? vegs?]
8.
Work out the cost per drink from the cost of the ingredients/recipe.
Calculate the cost of the drink in the Boost Bar - knowing that in business
the ingredients cost around 30% of the total cost. Is your new juice within
the cost range that you and your fellow students could afford? Do you need
to make any adjustments to your ingredients or portions?
9. Test this drink.
Make this drink and get the class to rate it out of 10 for taste and
appearance. Just a small "shot" glass will do for this tasting. Compare with
other class mates' drinks.
10. Once you have worked out the
cost, you now need to sell this new juice to Janine. You need to
create a poster with the juice
portrayed as Janine's Drinks page - showing ingredients; and the
nutritional values.
show your final costings and the profit that will be made from this
drink
show the
response from your testing
create a 1
minute "pitch" similar to what Janine is used to from The Shark Tank.