Jamba Juice And Their Prices: Buy Or Make Your Own?
Marissa Fritz
Mrs. Straub
Economics
22 May 2014
Jamba Juice And Their Prices: Buy Or Make Your Own?
If you’ve driven through Brookfield or Madison recently, you may have seen a new juice bar that has been gaining momentous popularity. Jamba juice has recently been extending it’s chain to areas all over the country. If you have never visited, or never heard of Jamba Juice, here’s a little background on the company from Businessweek.com: the juice bar, native to California, opened its doors in 1990. It was formerly known as Juice Club, Inc. but changed its name to Jamba Juice Company, Inc. in 1995. They’re known for their whole fruit smoothies, fresh-squeezed juices and juice blends, coffees and teas, boosts, shots and sandwiches. 
But if you’ve ever visited a Jamba Juice, you’d also know that they’re notorious for their high prices. Although smoothies seem like something that many people would choose to enjoy on a typical day, there’s definitely excludability in purchasing anything from the company. In fact, according to an article from The Washington Post by by Sarah Kliff on May 31, 2012, “Juice bar prices can feel
outrageous, sometimes ranging into double-digits just for a single drink.” So are we being swindled when we buy one of their overpriced drinks? Is our opportunity cost higher or lower when debating between purchasing Jamba Juice or just making our own food?
Kliff continues her article on Jamba Juice by finding the answer to that particular question, “If you went to Whole Foods and bought enough organic lemons, Granny Smith apples, celery, ginger, green chard, kale, and collard greens to make Melvin’s signature Body Good, which costs $9, you’d be out about $17. Given the various bushel sizes and prices per weight, you could eventually bring the cost down to around nine bucks per juice”. So there you have it! You can make your own smoothie for about the same 
cost...but wait... that’s before we factor in the Factors of Production. You could lower the price, “but only if you made nine or ten servings at a time. And that doesn’t include the $100-plus investment for a basic juicer; commercial-grade cold-press machines are closer to $300.”
So when you visit Jamba Juice and notice that they’ve raised their prices again, it’s important to remember that “a markup might seem steep, but it has to support retail and office space, equipment, employees, marketing, and other business costs.” So is your opportunity cost lower if you were to buy their smoothies instead of making your own? Well if you want something of that quality, then the answer is yes. Besides, their food tastes good, is good for you, and you don’t have to do any of the clean up.
Sources:
- Kliff, Sarah. "Jamba Juice economics."Washington Post. The Washington Post, 31 May 2012. Web. 22 May 2014. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/jamba-juice-economics/2012/05/31/gJQAS6WQ4U_blog.htm
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