Nearly three in four consumers are willing to pay a higher retail price for a food or drink product made with ingredients they recognize and trust. Menu transparency has quickly become less of a novelty and more of a necessity for restaurant concepts.

At Smoothie King, our focus has always been on creating Smoothies With A Purpose® blended with ingredients that guests can recognize – especially as we’ve dedicated the past several years to working toward our Cleaner Blending Initiative.

Smoothie King CEO Wan Kim recently explained the inspiration behind our Cleaner Blending Initiative, which was a natural step in the evolution of our brand:

“So many companies focus only on the money-making aspects of their business, sacrificing quality for profitability,” Wan said. “Of course, at Smoothie King we are business people, too, but we always create our product based on our unique vision and mission to be a part of everyone’s fitness and wellness journey. When you focus on your mission and creating a quality product, you allow opportunities for growth to follow.”

Cleaner Blending for Cleaner Eating

When the Smoothie King team decided to launch our Cleaner Blending Initiative, we aimed to make cleaner eating more accessible to everyone, recognizing this is something our guests wanted. As part of the campaign, we’ve eliminated all:

• Artificial flavors, artificial colors and artificial preservatives
• GMO fruits and vegetables
• Added hormones
• Gluten
• Hydrogenated oils
• Ingredients prohibited by any regulatory lists monitored by NSF
• Trans fats
• High-fructose corn syrup

We’re also in the process of removing all added sugars from our Purpose Blends, which is more than 50 blends.

And, unlike competitors within the smoothie segment, when we say we are working to use more whole fruits in our smoothies, we mean it. With Cleaner Blending, many of our smoothies are made with whole veggies like carrots, kale and spinach, as well as whole mangoes, raspberries, bananas and wild blueberries. By being fully transparent and practicing what we preach, our initiative makes clean eating easy for guests.

Staying True to Our Roots but Committed to Improvement

“Smoothie King was founded in 1973 before smoothies became a popular food item, much less an entire market in itself,” said Wan. “So, being one of the first concepts out there, we have an obligation to forge this new industry of better-for-you smoothies. People in the industry have diluted their products and made them much less nutritious, and I think it’s up to us to change the industry to become more nutrition-focused, while changing peoples’ perception of smoothies as just a treat. Smoothies can be a vital part of any wellness and fitness regimen.”

Even with the added emphasis on nutrition-focused smoothies, we always try to be mindful of costs.

“We try to secure organic ingredients wherever we can, but we also stay cognizant of costs,” said Wan. “In line with our mission statement is our goal to be a part of everyone’s health and fitness journey, meaning we need to make sure we’re affordable for everyone. So, we opt for quality ingredients while still making our product available to all.”

By staying true to our mission and constantly innovating our product, we’re able to provide both guests and franchisees a product they love.

“Not a lot of brands allow you to work hard while you feel great about what you’re doing,” Wan said. “My favorite part about Smoothie King is that we’re always working to do business right. Helping people achieve their goals at every level – whether that’s to be a successful business owner with an international brand, or to just have a great-tasting, better-for-you smoothie helping them achieve their wellness goals.”

To learn more about the opportunity to become a franchisee with a brand dedicated to continuous improvement, check out our Franchise Kit here.