After a few years of bringing home the bacon with the grass-fed, frozen meat delivery service ButcherBox, plans to shake things up in the smoothie business.
Using the same subscription model – and focus on meat – CEO Mike Salguero’s newest venture called SmoothieBox focuses on providing high-protein smoothie packs based on recipes that use collagen, which is found in parts of animals not typically eaten in the American diet, such as tendons, cartilage, hide and bone.
While mixing a meat product in a smoothie might sound strange but the powder form in the drink plan is odorless and tasteless, and could be easily sourced from the farmers Butcher Box currently works with. Salguero also said that the material helps reduce underused parts of animals sold for their meat, and uses the same frozen delivery process used for Butcher Box.
“Collagen fit right in, in terms of being able to find it from the same process and the same people we’re talking to - in terms of being able to get really healthy, quality collagen. … It’s also really good for making sure you’re using the entire animal," said Salguero. It helps that collagen has nearly zero fat.
“It does a bunch of really great stuff for people – skin, hair, nails, bone and joint strength, healthy gut,” he said.
Officially launched pre-sales last week, SmoothieBox so far has $292,329 in pre-orders for the product that will start shipping in August. Marketing itself as a supplier of frozen breakfast “super smoothies,” the startup will deliver by mail packs with collagen, portions of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds for blender-ready drinks that supply upwards of 20 grams of protein, and 10 grams of fat.
So far, the company has three flavors on tap: a green smoothie with spinach, avocado and pineapple; a cacao one with cacao, banana, zucchini and kale; and a Clementine one with mandarin, sweet potato, carrot and ginger.
For those without a taste for meat, the team may introduce whey or vegan protein shakes in the future, said Salguero.
The idea of SmoothieBox has been marinating for a while, said Salguero, who said he was busy raising up ButcherBox – which now has 60 employees and feeds 10,000 families nationwide – before launching the new venture.
It started when his wife was pregnant with identical twins about 18 months ago, and she was prescribed a diet high in protein to keep her and her babies healthy.
“So, we were using a ton of collagen,” he said. “That worked well for her … and then we started eating collagen as a family. It was a no-brainer option.”
But don’t expect him to stop at this venture.
“This,” he said, “is the first of numerous brands that we will launch here in the next several years.”
