Jamba Juice

The Smoothie chain Jamba Juice was founded by San Luis Obispo native Kirk Perron in April, 1990, as Juice Club. Perron along with Joe Vergara, Linda Olds and Kevin Peters started the fruit smoothie store in California. They served a variety of smoothies, fruit juices, wheat-grass products, natural energy booster drinks and light snacks. There are more than 700 Jamba Juice retail stores located in 30 States, the Bahamas and the District of Columbia.

In 1997, the juice chain and Whole Foods Market entered into an agreement to sell the juice smoothies in the Whole Market stores, along with the natural foods they sell in the store chain. After other partnerships and expansions, Jamba Juice has become one of the largest smoothie chains in the United States.http://dining.byu.edu/jambajuice/about.html

Jamba Juice offers an assortment of "boosts" in their products. Many of these vitamin and mineral supplements have been removed from the menu, but are still available. Soy Protein, Immunity, Energy, Fiber, Daily Vitamin, Calcium and Green Caffeine are all free available boosts, though removed from Jamba menus at the end of 2007. New boosts were added in 2008, including Whey Protein, Heart Happy, Weight Burner and Omega 3.http://aol.careerbuilder.com/Jobs/Company/C8C7566808BZBHD3KHV/Jamba-Juice/?cbsid=734cf43e14d54d4eb08b88fca15ecf9b-324133744-VE-4&&cbRecursionCnt=1

Jamba Juice is one of North America's most profitable smoothie chains, with sales of about $300 million dollars every year. There are about 200 franchised locations, though the majority of the stores remain company-owned.

The Jamba Juice corporation has a passion for health and through activism and community participation the juice company has spread their location all across the US/http://aol.careerbuilder.com/Jobs/Company/C8C7566808BZBHD3KHV/Jamba-Juice/?cbsid=734cf43e14d54d4eb08b88fca15ecf9b-324133744-VE-4&&cbRecursionCnt=1

The name was changed to Jamba Juice in 1995 as a marketing strategy, apparently derived from an African word "jama," meaning "to celebrate." There are nearly 2,000 African languages, and Jamba Juice has not specified which language this word originates from. The name may also derive from the red-colored jambu fruit, native to south-east Asia.