Smoothie King Franchises Inc. (

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

Smoothie King) is an American

privately held A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose Stock, shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the Private equi ...

company that operates a chain of retail stores that specialize in selling

smoothie A smoothie is a beverage made by puréeing ingredients in a blender. A smoothie commonly has a liquid base, such as fruit juice or milk, yogurt or ice cream. Other ingredients may be added, including fruits, vegetables, non-dairy milk, cru ...

s. Founded in 1973, the company was bought by a South Korean franchisee in 2012. In the late 2010s, the company was focusing on whole and unmodified ingredients.

Corporate history

Smoothie King was founded in 1973 in

Kenner, Louisiana Kenner is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the most populous city in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Jefferson Parish, and is the largest incorporated suburban city of New Orleans. The population was 66,448 at the 2020 United States cen ...

by Steve and Cindy Kuhnau. It invented the business category of smoothie sales, and coined that name for the product. , Smoothie King was still a

privately held company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose Stock, shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the Private equi ...

. Kim Wan opened the company's first international franchise in South Korea in 2002 or 2003, and opened another 119 there within six years. In 2012, Kim bought the company from the Kuhnaus. He then acquired (equivalent to about $M in ) from Standard Charter Private Equity and National Pension Fund to grow the company. To succeed in this growth, Kim had several plans for Smoothie King. Kim planned to open 800 new

franchises Franchise may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Media franchise, a collection of related creative works, such as films, video games, books, etc., particularly in North American usage * "Franchise" (short story), a 1955 short story ...

and the company's first 200 corporately-owned stores. He also planned to experiment with selling salads and wraps at these latter locations (in South Korea, they made over 20% of Kim's revenue). In 2009, Smoothie King's per-store

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

was about , and had reached by 2012. Corporate-wide, revenues were in

fiscal year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ...

2017, and in fiscal year 2018. In 2023, the company made about in sales. In early 2014, Smoothie King contracted with the

New Orleans Pelicans The New Orleans Pelicans are an American professional basketball team based in New Orleans. The Pelicans compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southwest Division (NBA), Southwest Division of the Western Confere ...

to rename the New Orleans Arena, Smoothie King Center. The contract was for 2014–2024, and Smoothie King has the option to extend the contract through 2034. The

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

required that all Smoothie King products be tested before the deal was completed, to ensure that they didn't contain any league- banned substances; testing was an eight-month process. , the NBA continuted to require annual analysis of Smoothie King's products.

Personnel

CEO since 2012, Wan Kim had Tom O'Keefe as Smoothie King's corporate president in 2014, and in February 2019 he replaced Jennifer Herskind with Rebecca Miller (previously of On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina) as

chief marketing officer A chief marketing officer (CMO), also called a chief brand officer (CBO), is a C-suite corporate executive responsible for managing marketing activities in an organization. The CMO leads brand management, marketing communications (including adver ...

. Kim further shuffled his corporate positions in September 2019:

chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

Dan Harmon added president to his plate (replacing O'Keefe), chief development officer Kevin King became the chief business development officer, and Miller was promoted to head of field marketing.

Locations

By 2012, Smoothie King was headquartered in Covington, Louisiana. That year, however, the company took advantage of (equivalent to about $M in ) of incentives to move to

Metairie, Louisiana Metairie ( ) is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States, and is part of the New Orleans metropolitan area. With a population of 143,507 in 2020, Metairie is ...

, approximately to the south. , Smoothie King was based in

Coppell, Texas Coppell ( ) is a city in the northwest corner of Dallas County in the U.S. state of Texas. It is a suburb of Dallas and a bedroom community in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its population was 42,983 at the 2020 census. A small area in th ...

. Predominantly in the United States, Smoothie King also has locations in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, the

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...

, and previously had shops in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

(which opened in December 2012, but permanently closed in 2016). CEO Wan Kim has explicitly detailed the company's avoidance of cold-weather locations due to other smoothie companies' failures there. In 2018, the company opened its 1001st store, and by 2020, the number of stores was over 1100.

Products

In the company's earlier years, Steve Kuhnau added the "Hulk" smoothie to the stores' product line. It was invented for his neighbor who wanted help regaining weight during

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

, and has remained popular with other cancer patients through at least 2020. On January 1, 2013, the

Center for Science in the Public Interest The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is a Washington, D.C.–based non-profit watchdog and consumer advocacy group. History and funding CSPI is a consumer advocacy organization. Its focus is nutrition and health, food safety ...

awarded the Peanut Power Plus Grape Smoothie their Xtreme Eating "dis-honor" for its healthlessness; consisting of "peanut butter, banana, sugar, and grape juice", a cup had and of sugar. In March 2019, the company was focusing on its "Clean Blends initiative" whereby stores' menus featured more smoothies with whole fruits and vegetables, and lacking

food coloring Food coloring, color additive or colorant is any dye, pigment, or substance that imparts color when it is added to food or beverages. Colorants can be supplied as liquids, powders, gels, or pastes. Food coloring is commonly used in commercia ...

, artificial flavor,

preservatives A preservative is a substance or a chemical that is added to products such as food products, beverages, pharmaceutical drugs, paints, biological samples, cosmetics, wood, and many other products to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or b ...

, and

added sugar Added sugars or free sugars are sugar carbohydrates (caloric sweeteners) added to food and beverages at some point before their consumption. These include added carbohydrates ( monosaccharides and disaccharides), and more broadly, sugars nat ...

. By 2023, to attract younger customers with healthier interests, the company removed all syrups from its products and added 100-percent organic vegetables. That year they also introduced smoothie bowls, which proved profitable.

References

External links

* {{food chains in South Korea 1973 establishments in Louisiana 2012 mergers and acquisitions companies based in Dallas fast-food chains of the United States fast-food franchises restaurants established in 1973 restaurants in Louisiana smoothie chains in the United States