steelblue

Rumors of Jamba Juice's Demise Greatly Overstated

Your proclamation that JJ is 3x the size of privately held Smoothie King early in your review is inaccurate. In fact, with JMBA's recent regression, they are falling back towards SKFI rapidly. JMBA is less than twice the size of the entire Smoothie King enterprise, when you consider franchisee activity.

The two companies do not compare well, as SKFI is entirely a franchise operation, while JMBA is mostly corporate, with a few franchisees through acquisition of smaller chains and some co-branding efforts with Safeway and others. But JMBA remains overwhelmingly corporate owned.

But the main reason that JMBA is NOT positioned to succeed is that they fail to deliver the best product in their niche - several competitors have superior products, and they fail to deliver the promise of healthier food choices - again, some competitors actually deliver the healthier choices that JMBA only promises. Although, from a pure marketing standpoint, they are clearly the industry leader. How long will the buying public be fooled by JMBA's product?