Former stock broker Brent Rodgers and his company Roots Juices are ideally poised to cash in on the mainstream craze that is known as vegetable juicing. After leaving finance, Rodgers went on a year-long sabbatical travelling the world from South America to Australia. He discovered that people all over the world had discoverecd juicing. “I discovered juicing early on in my journey while in Peru. It was when I was on the Syria-Israel border that I had a light-bulb moment. There was this long line, which I thought was to get across the border. But it was actually for fresh celery and carrot juice. It was then that I realized this was a way of life and not just a trend,” he says.
Now he has a juicing plant in the Walnut Hill area of Dallas from which he and his employees turn out 10 flavors of juices that are, by almost any metric, exotic. Here are the flavors:
Restore: beets, carrots, apple, aloe & ginger
Refresh: cucumber, lime, mint, apple & ginger
Wake Up: carrot, apple, ginger & watermelon
Go Green: celery, kale, spinach, romaine, cucumber & lemon
Watermelon Cooler: watermelon & fennel
Glow: apple, spinach, celery & lemon
Health Nut Almond Milk: filtered water, almonds, dates, vanilla bean & sea salt
Pear Pleasure: pears & pineapple
Melon Mania: cantaloupe, honeydew & mint
At a press event this week, I liked the celery-heavy Glow, the Pear Pleasure, and the Health Nut Almond Milk.
All of the drinks are 100% juice and sell for $7 for a 16 oz. bottle. Roots Juices says that their ingredients are cold-pressed and unpasteurized. You should use them within 3-5 days and store under refrigeration.
When it launched in late June, the company web site offered daily delivery to most of Dallas. You can get same-day free delivery on orders over $30 for certain Dallas zip codes on orders placed by 2 p.m. The juices are also sold in Equinox Health Club, Beyond Pilates, and Beyond Pedaling.
