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Expressed Juice's Landfill-Biodegradable Bottles Withstand HPP Pressure

Florida-based premium juice distributor finds the perfect mix of technology and shelf appeal with its biodegradable bottles.

After discovering how the technology renders pathogens in food inert without compromising taste, it was a no-brainer for The Drinks Co. to use HPP to launch Expressed Juice, its first brand.
After discovering how the technology renders pathogens in food inert without compromising taste, it was a no-brainer for The Drinks Co. to use HPP to launch Expressed Juice, its first brand.

When Paul van Hamond arrived in the U.S. in 2012, he didn’t expect he would end up staying nine years. A native of Queensland, Australia, van Hamond was taking what he thought would be a six-month sabbatical from running the five restaurants he owned in Australia to pursue another business venture.

“That venture didn’t get legs,” says van Hamond, also a chef who trained in Monaco and London. “But when life gives you lemons, you make lemon juice, and that’s literally what I did.” After discovering how the technology renders pathogens in food inert without compromising taste, it was a no-brainer for The Drinks Co. to use HPP to launch Expressed Juice, its first brand.After discovering how the technology renders pathogens in food inert without compromising taste, it was a no-brainer for The Drinks Co. to use HPP to launch Expressed Juice, its first brand.

The Drinks Company, the premium juice distributor he founded by squeezing those lemons, has grown to be a dominant player in South Florida, he says. “Today, we distribute about 22 brands throughout South Florida and the Caribbean, focused mainly on our main sector in hospitality and cruise lines.”

The rise of The Drinks Company reads like a case study in being in the right place at the right time: Not only did Drinks start in Miami—one the world’s juice capitals—just as the fresh juice market had started to boom, but according to van Hamond it also was an early adopter of high pressure processing (HPP) to deliver juice, working with some of the technology’s Miami-based pioneers.

‘Better beverage company’
The Drinks Company was founded in 2014 by van Hamond and his business partner, Wilfredo Pinillos, who also brought a background in hospitality. With 11 employees and annual sales experiencing double digit growth, van Hamond calls his Miami Produce District company small, but with a big commitment to quality.

“We like to refer to ourselves as the ‘better beverage company’ because we don’t do sodas, but nectars and other products packed with nutritional value,” he says.

Besides its flagship product, Expressed™ Juice, which offers blends of colorful, fresh juice in seven flavors, the company also makes Mixology Maker, a range of cold-press cocktail mixers originally developed for use behind hospitality industry bars that has now expanded into liquor stores throughout South Florida, followed by a national rollout.

It all began in van Hamond’s South Beach kitchen, where his kids would ask him for daily fresh juice, which he says is more prevalent in Australia than in the U.S.

Making those blends at home inspired the idea for a new venture: a cold-pressed juice franchise. He later pivoted back to his roots in hospitality, to supply the food service sector for Florida’s hotels and cruise lines.

To succeed, van Hamond needed a way to keep his product fresh throughout distribution in a geographic region ranging from West Palm Beach, Fla. down to the Florida Keys, without the need for preservatives or heat pasteurization. Early in his quest for quality, he discovered HPP technology, pioneered by HPP machine builder Hiperbaric, which maintain offices in Doral, Fla., just outside Miami.

“It was an easy way for me to learn about HPP,” van Hamond says.

After discovering how the technology renders pathogens in food inert without compromising taste, it was a “no-brainer” for Drinks to use HPP to launch Expressed Juice, its first brand.

“The best juice I can make is right now right in front of me in my kitchen,” van Hamond says. “The next best is with HPP.”

Building a brand around a bottle
Van Hamond’s first bold move was to reduce container size. “Everyone in Florida seemed to be doing 16-oz bottles of juice, which for me is a significant amount of liquid,” van Hamond says. “So, we decided that we would go under the market and bring it to what I think is more acceptable to the consumer, which is a 12-oz size.”

Then, van Hamond reached out to Captiva Containers, a custom container business founded in 2013 with ties to Hiperbaric who had also entered the market during the specialty beverage boom. Most of Captiva’s clients are small- and medium-sized companies in the HPP sector.

“We have hundreds customers on a monthly recurring basis and at least 60 percent use HPP,” says Leon Morgenstern, chief operating officer at Captiva Containers.

Captiva worked with Drinks to design the Expressed Juice bottle using food-grade polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, a highly flexible material that can withstand the high pressure of the HPP chambers. Then began the quest for the rigidity ratio.

Mixology Maker is a range of cold-press cocktail mixers originally developed for use behind hospitality industry bars that has now expanded into liquor stores throughout South Florida, followed by a national rollout.Mixology Maker is a range of cold-press cocktail mixers originally developed for use behind hospitality industry bars that has now expanded into liquor stores throughout South Florida, followed by a national rollout.“The bottle had to be somewhat flexible, but not too flexible,” Morgenstern says. “In the HPP process, pressure is applied all around the bottle, so material distribution and wall thickness are key.”

The bottle’s closure also needed to withstand HPP, while preserving the bottle’s thread and neck finish with perfect compatibility.

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