How does a boutique wellness bar — sporting no less than 32 juice SKUs and 12 shots, not to mention a host of other offerings — stake a claim to retail store shelves? That’s the question driving Pressed CEO Justin Nedelman.
Speaking to BevNET earlier this week, Nedelman, an experienced foodservice operator who joined Pressed in June 2023, stressed that the brand’s 100 stores aren’t going anywhere; that segment is healthy and growing at a 20% clip over the past year, he said. But that strength is fueling a “change in mindset” as Pressed targets 100% growth in its wholesale business over the next 12 months.
“The big question for us is how do we unlock what’s going on in our stores at scale?,” said Nedelman. “Instead of building to 1,000 units over 10 years of our own [locations], I think it’s much faster and more efficient to get [products] into the hands of consumers.”
With that broader audience in mind, Pressed is taking a different approach to presentation and positioning at retail: in January, the company launched an four-item Express Cleanse box set — featuring Simple Cleanse, Greens with Ginger, Hydration+ Dragon Fruit, and Avocado Greens juices — for $20 at over 200 Super Target stores nationwide. It’s essentially a pared-down, approachable version of the more substantial “systems and solutions” bundles and cleanses sold at Pressed stores, designed as an entry point for consumers into the brand at a lower price point.
The strategy is to leverage the appeal and awareness of Pressed’s stores while also leaning into a different demographic and retail environment. To promote the Target launch, the brand deployed similar marketing tactics that might be used in its stores, reaching out to local influencers and gyms to generate awareness.
“We have this history in our stores, and this trust with our consumers that is parlaying pretty quickly into retail,” Nedelman said. “We look at it as the young kids that love our product are in Target [shopping] and their parents are there looking for deals. So [we are] appealing to an older demographic, versus the young kids at our stores that are eating up the Freeze [plant-based soft serve ice cream] bowls.”
Nedelman’s goal is to flip the existing 80-20 split between its in-stores and wholesale businesses over the next two years, but the company is also looking for ways to unify those two sides. That means enlarging its 12 oz. bottles at grocery to match the 15.2 oz. bottles sold at its stores, but without raising the price, a feat the CEO credits to cost savings achieved through vertical integration. To that end, the company is looking to crank up the volume on its California manufacturing facility (currently operating at 8% capacity), while key hires – Mark Seguin as chief sales officer and Gary Cooperman as hybrid CFO/COO – have come on in the past year.
It’s not just drinks, either: the aforementioned Freeze is also being primed to make the leap into grocery stores over the next 18-months, Nedelman said. The in-store experience is also being tweaked, as it tests an “open-air” store concept in Southern California in which guests can touch and engage with products themselves rather than through a sales associate.
Pressed’s new priorities will be on display at Natural Products Expo West in a few weeks, with the message to retailers being that, rather than a broad assortment of juices and natural wellness drinks, they can cover multiple categories and facings with Pressed as “a shop in the shop.” Expect to see more themed boxes and bundles in the coming months: After quickly selling out of the Express Cleanse, the brand is planning a follow-up release with Target along with teasing “something really interesting” with another major partner, Sprouts.
“The goal is to get it so that we’re a CPG brand marketed by our stores, as opposed to a retailer that has some CPG, but that switch is kind of happening now,” Nedelman said. “You’ll just see it come alive, not this next year, but the year after. Two years out, we’ll have more wholesale sales than in-store sales, for sure.”