Pressed Juicery announces new CEO Justin NedelmanPressed Juicery announces new CEO Justin Nedelman

Joanna Fantozzi

Pressed Juicery announced Tuesday the appointment of a new CEO, Justin Nedelman. Nedelman most recently served as chief real estate officer for FAT Brands, and before that was CEO and cofounder of California-based Eureka Restaurant Group.

In his new role as CEO of Pressed Juicery, avid wellness and fitness enthusiast Nedelman will focus on expanding the healthy foodservice brand’s presence into diverse verticals and categories, including CPG, retail, grab-and-go, and caffeinated drinks. Currently, Pressed Juicery is in 3,000 retail stores, including Target, Whole Foods and Sprouts, with more on the way. Overall, the goal is to help Pressed Juicery become a well-rounded health and wellness brand, not just a place to buy juice.

“One of the biggest priorities is to reimagine the box,” Nedelman told Nation’s Restaurant News. “Our four walls where we sell our products are our north star…our store locations are going to set the tone for what the brand is, but our wholesale and retail partners will be a phenomenal growth vehicle for us and at some point, might even be bigger than our store presence. But until such time, our stores get to tell our story.”

Nedelman joins the Pressed Juicery team at a time when the health and wellness category has been thriving, with plenty of emerging brands serving as competition for the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company with 100 units and counting.

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“It's a competitive landscape, but everything is competitive,” he said. “As long as we surround ourselves with people that kind of believe in the mission, we’re going to win…other brands are looking at ways to sell products outside of their four walls, and we’re already doing that. Now, we just need to make sure our stores provide a distinctive guest experience, so we’ll hopefully see updates to that soon.”

Some of the updates Nedelman hinted at include expanding into fresh dayparts and introducing new store prototypes. In a few months, he said that Pressed Juicery will be testing out a new market concept where they will expand in-store offerings to include grab-and-go items, hot food, non-dairy frozen yogurt, and other items to appeal to both heavy fitness enthusiasts and casual guests alike, to prove that Pressed Juicery can be about more than just cold-pressed juice and smoothies.

The goal would be to become a wellness brand where customers can come in during any daypart, from ordering a green juice for breakfast in the morning, to ashwagandha tea for a nightcap in the evening daypart.   

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 “We really want you thinking about us from the moment you wake up to the time you go to bed with items like a coffee smoothie that's just launched last week as we go down the path of offering caffeine mixed with protein,” Nedelman said. “There’s so much opportunity to satisfy the guest now.”

Nedelman’s goals for Pressed Juicery also includes improving foot traffic, remaining trusted and relevant to customers, and focus on driving brand expansion through retail and wholesale presence, including making more use out of Pressed Juicery’s factory to grow the business.

“I think the wellness craze is beginning,” he said. “…How do we continue to focus on leveraging our brand equity and consumer trust in the right way? If we're going to sell other products, how do they reinforce the overall ethos around accessibility to health and wellness? We need to continually evolve.”  

Contact Joanna at [email protected]