Tiki's Cranium
We invited Dimitrios Zahariadis, President of the U.S. Bartenders Guild, New Haven Chapter, to create a cocktail recipe that highlights his favorite RIPE Bar Juice. He chose Bajan Punch, which is an a...
Food Entrepreneurs
RIPE Bar Juice
One of Connecticut's Brightest Beverage Startups is Ripe for Growth
As a child, I relished the chance to join my parents for dinner at a real, adult restaurant. It was a big deal to play grown-up and prove that I had the semblance of a mild-mannered gentleman. A waiter would arrive to take my drink order and I’d inquire, “Do you have lemonade?” “Yes,” was the common answer, but what arrived was frequently a disappointment and far from fresh lemonade. It was often merely sour mix on the rocks, likely concocted from a dry powder scooped out of a foil envelope. If I were lucky, there would be a lemon wedge I could squeeze into the glass.
Today, thanks to the popularity of the local food and mixology movements, taking shortcuts in the restaurant industry no longer passes muster. With the cocktail revival continuing to flourish, bartenders committed to serving quality drinks need a critical raw ingredient: freshly squeezed juice.
For decades, the only real way for bartenders to source fresh juice was to squeeze it themselves, but that is a timely endeavor requiring daily application. Enter RIPE Bar Juice, the nation’s first cold-pressed, fresh juice bar mixer. Founded in 2009 in Wallingford, Connecticut, RIPE saw a void in the restaurant industry and realized bartenders were underserved and constrained by their distributor’s meager offerings.
“Our start actually began in our backyard, not the back bar,” says JD Altobello, Vice President of Sales. “We used to make cocktails with fresh juice during our home barbeques. It didn’t take long before friends told us that our juice was better than anything on the market, and that we should figure out a way to bottle it.” RIPE set up shop in a small industrial condominium and converted the space into a commercial kitchen. By 2010, production began, and they started to pound the pavement. Ten restaurant and bar accounts in central Connecticut were quickly signed, and then…a huge break.
“We pitched to Whole Foods, knowing that the way they handle small startups is by testing them out in a handful of stores, then gradually expanding based on sales performance,” says Altobello. “Our meeting with the buyer went great – so much so that he told us he wanted to present our business at an upcoming regional meeting.” It turns out that Whole Foods liked the brand so much that they took it into two eastern regions, and just like that, RIPE added roughly 56 Whole Foods stores. The growth has continued ever since.
Cold-pressed juices are a growing segment of the beverage industry. According to Persistence Market Research, the global market for cold-pressed juices is projected to grow 7% annually and to be valued at $845 million by 2024. RIPE Bar Juice can be found coast to coast with its market developed heavily up and down the east coast and in Las Vegas. The company’s rapid growth quickly rendered their Wallingford facility too small. Today, RIPE is produced in a 24,000-square-foot plant in New Haven with state-of-the-art equipment and a thoughtfully designed manufacturing process.
RIPE’s approach is meticulous and starts with sourcing non-GMO produce from carefully selected farmers that are certified Global GAP farms (Good Agricultural Practices). “We only work with farmers we know,” Altobello stresses. “It’s important to us that our customers know exactly where their juice is coming from."
When the produce leaves RIPE’s refrigerated storage unit, it begins a journey of washing, grinding, and pressing to extract as much juice as possible. Unlike some food manufacturing lines that focus on speed, RIPE’s process is much more measured, and that is by design. “All of the machinery moves very slowly but applies a tremendous amount of pressure,” Altobello says. “Every piece of equipment here is designed to minimize friction in order to reduce heat.”
Pasteurization, which uses heat to eliminate bacteria, has long been the traditional method to create shelf life for juice products, but the process can negatively alter the taste of the fruit and vegetables. Once RIPE’s juices are bottled and sealed, they instead get sent through an impressive High Pressure Processing machine, which applies an unfathomable 87,000 PSI to each bottle. The pressure crushes any remaining bacteria, which enables RIPE Bar Juice to have a proper shelf life while tasting as close to fresh-squeezed juice as you can get.
“RIPE is changing the way bartenders approach their work,” says Dimitrios Zahariadis, President of the U.S. Bartenders Guild, New Haven Chapter, and an award-winning mixologist. “Having a consistent source of fresh, delicious juice on hand allows bartenders to pretty much craft anything a customer asks for and makes it easier to experiment with new recipes.”
In the beverage industry, taste is the final arbiter of adoption, and it is clear that RIPE Bar Juice stands out in a crowded field. “When I get the chance to watch people try our juices for the first time and see their reaction, it makes all the hard work worth it,” says Altobello. “Nothing energizes me more than seeing people being blown away by our products.”
Drink and cocktail ingredients have come a long way since the days of powdered sour mix, thanks to brands like RIPE Bar Juice. As one of Connecticut’s shining stars in the startup community, look for this rising company to announce new, adjacent innovations in the future – they just need a bit more time to ripen before they are unveiled.
RIPE Bar Juice comes in seven flavors, including Agave Margarita, Agave Mojito, Classic Cosmopolitan, San Marzano Bloody Mary, and more.
> RIPE: 26 Kendall St., New Haven; 475-227-3446
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