Smoothie King to Fuel Ambitious Growth Goals at RECon

Smoothie King, the pioneer of the juice and smoothie category and the industry’s fastest-growing smoothie brand, has set out to sign more than 100 new franchise and area development agreements in 2015 for 160 new locations. The brand has already made extensive progress toward this goal throughout the first quarter of the year, and is well on its way to reaching 1,000 locations nationwide by the end of 2017. The franchise system is thrilled to give its plans an even bigger boost at the 2015 International Council of Shopping Centers conference.

“This year, as with every year, we’ll meet with prospective developers and brokers trying to find the best possible locations,” said John Gordon, Real Estate Manager at Smoothie King. “This conference is important for keeping our name out there, but it’s also a chance for every major developer to show off their hottest properties and updated plans. It gives us a chance to really project locations for the rest of this year and next year.”

With the brand’s rapid expansion, high-quality locations are a high priority, proving to be just as important to the brand as quality franchisees.

“Our bread and butter is high visibility locations, such as drive-thrus, that create value in the customer’s mind,” Gordon said.

Smoothie King signed 78 agreements totaling more than 200 stores in 2014 alone, as well as 13 agreements totaling 41 stores and 22 new location leases so far in 2015. Sales are also up. Smoothie King has posted positive same-store sales consecutively for the last five years, with a 9.2 percent* increase in 2014. With this increase, average gross sales of the top 25 percent of stores in 2014 have climbed to $619,244**.

“We now have four real estate managers and four franchise development managers on our team, and we’re strategically pushing hard to meet our expansion goals,” Gordon said.

One highlight of the brand’s ambitious expansion goals is its recent push into the American Southwest, including Las Vegas and Phoenix. This is all in keeping with Smoothie King’s new branding, offering the same great tastes and quality with a new, more streamlined design. It’s this balance between tradition and innovation that has helped Smoothie King take home the No. 1 spot in its segment on Entrepreneur magazine’s Franchise 500 for more than two decades.

With help from the industry’s biggest movers and shakers at this year’s conference, Smoothie King is better primed and positioned to spread its message of “Smoothies With a Purpose” than ever before.