We opened our 1,000th Smoothie King store in Richardson, Texas, on August 23, 2018. While many other brands may become complacent after reaching such a momentous goal, we at Smoothie King are always looking forward.
For us, that achievement brought us one step further on our mission of inspiring people to live a healthy and active lifestyle.
“More people want to live a healthy and active lifestyle, but they don’t have a lot of options,” said Wan Kim, Smoothie King CEO. “With more stores, Smoothie King can help more people.”
So, you could say at 1,000 stores, we’re just getting started. We are committed to continuous evolution, growing and adapting to the latest trends in an effort to become a part of everyone’s health and wellness journeys. Here’s what we have planned next:
Our New Goal: 1,800 stores domestically by 2023
We have big plans for the coming years, including adding 1,800 stores domestically by 2023. To kick start that expansion plan, our current objective is to sign 130 franchise agreements for 225 committed stores and open a total of 116 franchise locations by the end of 2019.
We plan to achieve these goals through a two-pronged expansion strategy: targeting new markets, as well as opening new stores in existing markets where there is already strong brand awareness. The new markets we are exploring include Washington, D.C., and New York, among others.
We also plan to accelerate our expansion by signing franchise agreements with more multi-unit franchisees and investment groups.
Accommodating Future Guests, Existing Guests and Franchisees
Our 1,000th store wasn’t the only milestone we reached in 2018. We also began rolling out our Clean Blends initiative system-wide, and we plan to complete the rollout in September of 2019. Now, we’re working really hard on menu engineering to continue drawing new guests while keeping our existing guests and franchisees satisfied. That includes bringing back some items or modifying recipes to please our existing guests and reducing the cost of ingredients for our franchisees.
Menu innovation is just one way we continue to adapt to meet the needs of our guests.
“At Smoothie King, our vision is to be an integral part of every health and fitness journey,” said Wan. “We have to keep evolving because our guests demand us to, otherwise we can’t be a part of every health and fitness journey.”
Rule The Day
In March, we launched our Rule The Day™ campaign, which coincides with Clean Blends and emphasizes our vision. We’re challenging our guests to rule their day and achieve their wellness goals, whatever they may be, using our smoothies as the fuel to help them reach higher.
“Rule The Day summarizes all the things we’re trying to do. How can you rule the day by using our products?” said Wan.
From Smoothies With A Purpose to Rule The Day, we’ve come a long way in the past five years.
“This manifesto is the result of all of our evolution for the past five years,” Wan emphasized. “We couldn’t have done Rule the Day five years ago without all the effort we put in to get where we are now.”
We look forward to growing with our guests, and helping them rule their day for many years to come.
