The Juice Dudes Put the ‘Cool’ in Cold-Pressed Juice

There was a period at the beginning of the last decade wherein the general public felt that in order to be healthy, they had to spend a lot of money and use of all of their precious time with conscious grocery shopping and a never-ending quest to seek out healthy cooking alternatives. But what they didn’t realize is that feeling good inside was a lot easier than they thought, especially when given access to fresh-pressed juices, which have become all the rage in global cities in the course of the last 5 years. Taking nods from cities like New York and LA, pressed juices have become an overnight sensation in Europe, and companies like ‘The Juice Dudes‘ in Berlin are leading the charge. The company, run by best friends, features farm-fresh ingredients and charming illustrated artwork that has been growing in popularity and public recognition since their founding in 2014.

On a recent trip to Berlin, Garden Collage spoke with Dominik Lalla, one of the Juice Dudes’ owners, about the company’s awesome pressed juices and why they decided to start liquifying their vegetables. He even created a custom “GC Juice” using fresh, seasonal ingredients. Check out our interview and the custom juice recipe, below.

GC: Tell us how the concept of ‘Juice Dudes’ came about.

JD: Juice Dudes was founded by three friends who played sports together and had been into juicing for a while. We recognized that juicing was very popular in the US and the UK, where we studied, but when we looked at our native market in Germany, we recognized that there wasn’t a large market for quality juices and we decided it was the best product to encapsulate the features and benefits of eating and living healthy.

GC: How does it feel to be one of the most popular juice companies in Berlin?

JD: Are we that? That’s cool! It feels awesome. Berlin is a great place. There are so many juice companies coming out now and we don’t really see them as competition because we all learn from one another. We are still growing and establishing ourselves as a strong brand and a great product– and in order to grow, we need to learn from the other juice companies. We are in touch with them and talk about what their problems are and how they succeed. There is a lot of collaboration here, even though we are competitors.

GC: What is your most popular drink?

JD: Our most popular drink is Life Generator. We named it after a juicing guru that has loads of videos on YouTube. He’s juicing anything possible. So far this is our most popular drink, probably because it’s green and so far 2015 is a very green year for Berlin.

Food Stylist: Tabea Mathern

GC: Do you guys incorporate any special flowers or weeds in your drinks?

JD: At that the moment, we don’t have any special weeds or flowers, but we do have Kale, Spinach, and lots of green. We are looking to incorporate seaweed and other super foods, but so far we stick to veggies and fruits, which are very powerful on their own.

GC: Do you grow your own veggies? If not, where do you go to get the good stuff?

JD: Growing our own veggies isn’t possible anymore due to the demand. We do have a farm that sources fresh basil and parsley. Meanwhile, we source our produce from mostly regional farmers around Berlin, and we try to have the shortest route between our wholesalers and us.

Food Stylist: Tabea Mathern

GC: What are the next steps for ‘Juice Dudes’?

JD: We don’t want to make anyone wait any longer for the juices to get to their homes. We are looking to have our products all over Germany. Right now the juices can ship all over Germany, but we have our eye on setting up a distribution network so that we can ship our juices wholesale all over the country. We want to have a well-recognized brand all over Germany.

GC: If you could create a unique juice that would only be sold for a limited time, what would you put in it?

JD: We really like the amount of vitamins that are in even small portions of superfoods. If we could somehow get cherries fresh that would be good. We don’t use powdered products, so if we could get the superfoods really fresh, we would put loads of them in our juices. (Below, check out Juice Dudes fresh-pressed GC Juice Recipe, custom designed for the GC Team. It’s the perfect recipe for an interesting, herbal, farmers market-sourced juice.)

GC Pressed Juice