Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Juicers

A video I watched on a site about a man tearing apart a Juicero appliance had me sucked into the vortex of the world of juicers, reading untold number of web pages, watching hour-long videos, comparing juicer types, and reading reviews on Amazon.

There are hundreds of models. Most made in China by the same manufacturer, I'm assuming.

The video is long but worth it for people who like to tear things apart. The YouTube member does this sort of thing so he's being silly by opening the box with an axe where simply cutting the tape will do. He's very good at describing his appreciation for what he finds once he open up the machine and marvels at the art-like craftwork that he finds inside. He tests the electronics and describes it. He shows how it is hacked.


That caused me to read about what went wrong with Juicero. Quite a lot is written about this company, the hubris, the bubble, the company economic model, the wealth, the detachment that caused it to fail.

Juicero was a Silicon Valley startup that looked great on paper but was so divorced from the needs of everyday users it was doomed to fail in practice. Then Bloomberg produced a video showing its vaunted powerful smasher was matched by simply squeezing the bag by hand. The video went viral.

The company folded within weeks.

The company sold an expensive machine priced at top of the line juicers while the machine was actually worth much more than that. Very good plastic molding, great materials throughout, careful machining of metal elements, gears and their housing, the machine is a piece of art in materials and in care.

The company would make money by subscriptions for their fresh fruit and vegetable packages that their machine squeezed. The packages were very good quality of well selected and well handled goods, scrapped to produce shredded material that behaved as a mop to hold the juices. The machine smashed the bag so the juice runs out. The packages are outrageously expensive.

To ensure product safety and freshness each packet is coded. The machine is connected to the internet by the user's cellphone and each packet checked before squeezing. Totally over-engineered. And the user is limited to the company's line of packages. It just didn't work for most people. The two people I watched tearing apart the packages were interested in examining the materials used for the pouches, touching the food material and tasting it.

That caused me look for what makes a good juicer.

A friend in Boston showed me his juicer twenty-five years ago, a centrifugal type that spun at high speed but I never had the slightest interest. Lately I've been taking tablets about the size of two quarters stacked made from compressed dehydrated greens. I dissolve them in 4X the amount of water and sip them for a few hours. I'm drinking one now. And now I'm thinking an actual juicer would be even better.

I watched a long video by a pleasant man comparing the Juicero with another type of juicer that he uses himself. He duplicated the Bloomberg demonstration and discussed the company's business model and why it failed. The man talks his face off for nearly an hour describing every detail of the two juicers, what they are doing, how they do it, weight, footprint, complexity of use, the range of their abilities, maintenance, cleaning, pros and cons of each, and the like. His discussion of juicers is exhausting.

Turns out the man works for Discount Juicers and he has some dozen or so videos explaining models, and comparing, giving demonstrations, making recommendations and such.

This video below is a comprehensive 47 minute video that compares two of the best models. The model with the vertical auger is the slowest model available and it comes with fifteen year warranty. This is the type the man uses at home. He says in another video that he has some dozen or so juicers at home but this is the one he uses everyday. In yet another video he gives a demonstration of how he does things for himself. This time he uses four gigantic Swiss chard stalks that he grew himself, plus celery and six or so cucumbers and produces about 2 quarts of juice. That's his food for the day. It's worth watching if you have an interest in juicers.

2 comments:

edutcher said...

He testes the electronics and describes it.

Bet that hurt.

Chip Ahoy said...

Thank you, corrected.