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One of Silicon Valley's most infamous recent startups is shutting down:
Juicero, the company that made its name by creating a proprietary juice-squeezing machine, is shutting down. The announcement comes from Juicero's website. In its post, the company writes that it is suspending the sale of both its juice packets and its Juicero Press device. The last juice packet delivery will occur next week. All customers have up to 90 days to request a refund for their purchase of the Juicero Press, regardless of when they bought it. Fortune reports that employees are being given 60 days notice.
Previously: Juicero Squeezed by Press and Internet
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Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 02 2017, @02:41AM (9 children)
A $500 device that can only squish very special packets of plain old fruit at $7/pack, what could possibly go wrong!
We see the overplayed stereotype of the investor/businessman so lost in his own little world where the cost of things doesn't matter that he can no longer do anything practical all the time, but the Juicero proves that there is a truth behind it.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday September 02 2017, @02:55AM (2 children)
They might have had success just selling the bags advertised as something you can squeeze yourself with your hands.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 02 2017, @03:15AM
It would have had a better chance that way, but they would have needed to come down in price a bit to expand outside of the valley.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 02 2017, @04:39AM
I'll take, "What is a penis? For $200, Alex".
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday September 02 2017, @11:41AM (5 children)
I agree, and are still dumbfounded that the coffe capsule* (Tassimo et al) took off and seems viable (especially since a "will grind beans and only requires a change of water once a day" automatic coffemaker starts at below $200).
To my mind this basically was the capsule-machine for juice.
(* = ok, it makes sense for stuff with milk)
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday September 02 2017, @02:23PM (4 children)
...if there are models that don't require the filter to be cleaned after every use and the grinder to be cleaned daily, do tell. Sure, those are well and truly first-world problems, but I use a coffee capsule machine because it can dispense a single mug - of something far better than instant - every morning with no measuring and no maintenance bar a quick swill out of the drip tray every couple of days, with coffee grounds never entering your life. Its not a huge advantage over a filter machine with paper filters but I've found it difficult to make less than a couple of mugfulls at a time with those. Plus, there are other advantages - e.g. the capsules are individually sealed and have a long shelf-life, so you can have a range of coffees on the go.
What I don't understand is the people who get coffee capsule machines and then use refillable capsules that negate all of the advantages of having a capsule machine in the first place (and, going by the online reviews, produce inconsistent results)... Perhaps they just get off on the feeling that they're sticking it to The Man?
The problem with Juicero is that it doesn't seem to have any advantage whatsoever over having a fridge full of individual cartons of premium not-from-concentrate juice. The capsules have a short shelf-life, the fruit is pre-shredded so the degradation process has been started and they take up more space than the pressed juice would... They clearly thought they were copying the coffee pod model, but didn't think through the detail.
Now, if they'd (say) come up with a system that could instantly thaw and extract frozen pouches, or a new way of re-constituting dried/concentrated fruit that tasted better than economy from-concentrate juice, they may have had a hope.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday September 02 2017, @04:58PM (2 children)
(Sorry for being disjointed, been spending all days reading lists and can't break the mindset)
There are models where the filter are cleaned daily rather than after every cup (usually they max out at about 6-12 cups before cleaning anyway). But I agree that is still more hassle than most people want (and if you only drink one or two cups a day it is the same anyway).
The shelflife is the reason I consider the capsule to make sense for milk-based stuff.
For refillable - well, if they refill in batches they still have the convenience of just getting a "hook it up, start it, and drink it" with minimum daily hassle.
The juicero has one advantage of the cartons and that is regular automated shipping, but that is available for fresh fruit in many cities (and quite frankly, freshly squeezing is faster than the juicero if you have proper equipment [like a knife and a mesh]).
Personally I'd just like to see a tweakable system that allows to dispense a decent cup of hot chocolate milk (and costing less than about 2k usd, at the 2k-10k pricepoints there are a couple of dozen models)
The one (excepting cost) drawback I see with capsule machines are their lack of options for tweaking (what is considered "perfect" in most brews are very far from my personal preference)
Btw, tried a coffee-press? or of those those hour-glass-shaped thingies (can't recall the name right now). Those come in single-cup varieties.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 02 2017, @11:47PM
https://ineedcoffee.com/press-pot-tutorial/ [ineedcoffee.com]
Costs about $5-10. I use it to make some Cafe Bustelo (~$3 vacuum sealed brick).
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday September 03 2017, @11:32AM
Sure, but you still end up cleaning coffee grounds out of the filter after every use, and they're still not particularly brilliant for single cups. I'm not saying that capsule machines aren't an expensive, lazy and wasteful option - but they do tick the box of providing better-than-instant coffee with no mess and are particularly handy when you only want one or two cups a day. I'm just comparing it with the idiotic Juicero which is self-evidently less convenient than just getting a carton out of the fridge: its not as if we haven't had online grocery stores for the last couple of decades...
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 05 2017, @09:40PM
No maintenance? My girlfriend has one of those machines and it's a goddamn nightmare. Or rather she has had MANY of them, because they never seem to survive more than a couple months before the whole thing breaks down and she's gotta make them send her a new one. Even the Kuerig support guys know they break constantly, they don't even question it, you just say "the light's blinking and it won't brew" and they send you a new one. You don't even have to send the thing back to them! She just got a new one about a month ago and it's already broken again. Sometimes she can tear the whole machine apart and get it to work for another day or two, but it's absurdly high maintenance compared to any other coffee maker. The only reason she still uses it is because she wants a french press and can't afford it right now (her parents send her pods sometimes, so that's "free".) And the coffee it makes is weak as hell too, there's entire websites devoted to "hacks" to make it spit out decent strength coffee.
Just get a funnel and some coffee filters. No maintenance, no cleaning. Throw the filter in the trash and rinse the funnel. Just as easy as the pods, and you get a better tasting cup of coffee, and there's nothing to break down.
Those machines *kinda* make sense in waiting rooms, since you can offer multiple flavors and ensure sanitation since they're all sealed. Or maybe if you've got some kind of condition that makes your hands shake I guess, 'cause pouring coffee grounds could get messy in that case. But otherwise I can't see any legitimate benefit...