Doctors recommend adults get at least two to three cups of vegetables a day, but since few Americans actually eat that many, some are beginning to drink the recommended amount, making it attractive for your food business to look into vegetable juice pricing and costs. And why not? Vegetable juice is a tasty alternative to the many available less healthful drinks like sodas and sports drinks, and it is packed with vitamins and minerals.

Whether you want to sell single-serving bottles or kitchen-ready cans to your customers, you need canned vegetable juice suitable for your commercial kitchen or you even need vegetable juice powder for your health food store, there are plenty of vegetable juice companies and distributors to choose from. But before you begin buying, consider which type of juice you're most likely to sell and what it will cost you. You may need:

1. Single-serving veggie juice bottles like V8 juice,
2. Large cans of raw vegetable juice, such as is used in cooking,
3. Or organic vegetable juice powders, as is found in health food stores?

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Purchase single and mixed vegetable juice for individuals

Single- or double-serving bottles of 6 to 12 oz. of vegetable juice have recently become popular and may be found in many grocery and convenience stores alongside sodas and sports drinks. Depending upon the quantities ordered, expect to pay between $20 to $25 for a case (24 count) of V8 vegetable juice cocktail or similar bottled vegetable or vegetable fruit juice.

I recommend: Nationwide Candy sells 12-oz. bottles of V8 100% vegetable juice. Wholesale Depot offers Campbell's Tomato Juice and V8 at wholesale prices.

Buy kitchen-ready cans from a vegetable juice wholesaler

If you need cans of tomato juice, such as a consumer or commercial kitchen would buy for cooking, wholesale costs depend not just on quantities purchased but also the brand. For example, Campbell's Tomato Juice in a 46-oz. can is about $20 to $25 for a case of 12, while the same amount of 46-oz. cans of Red Gold Tomato Juice runs closer to $25 to $30.

I recommend: Southeast Wholesale Foods sells 5- to 46-oz. cans of tomato, carrot and Mott's Clamato juice, suitable for cooking. Best Price Wholesale offers several popular brands of tomato juice, plus V8 vegetable juice, in cans suitable for the kitchen.

Consider juice powders from vegetable juice distributors

Vegetable juice powders are often found in health food stores or food businesses catering toward those who consume health foods. To use, you or your customer must simply mix the powder with an appropriate amount of water. Organic beet juice powder costs about $18 to $25 per pound wholesale, while organic powdered carrot juice is $14 to $20 wholesale and organic spinach powder is $18 to $20.

I recommend: Purehealthsystems.com sells vegetable powders, including beet, carrot, tomato and spinach, at wholesale prices. Nutrition Lifestyles offers beet juice powder wholesale.

Vegetable juice can be a great alternative as well as a quick way to get that recommended daily vegetable serving. Experts recommend getting at least two to three servings of vegetables every day. You can include carrots, spinach, tomatoes, celery or beets in your veggie juice, or you can add a combination of two or more for mixed vegetable juice. Regardless, vegetable based juice still contains the same amount of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

First, focus on where you want to make your vegetable juice, whether it's from a home-based business, a factory or a retail facility. As a vegetable juice wholesaler or distributor, market to grocery stores, restaurants or school cafeterias. Second, to ensure quality vegetable juice, buy fresh, colorful vegetables from farmers' markets or vegetable distributors, or grow your own. Equipment such as juicers should also be included in your vegetable juice shop, along with materials for bottling or canning vegetable juice. Before mixing your vegetable juice cocktail:

1. Find enough vegetable filters to remove pulp, dirt and debris.

2. Buy juicers or extractors that produce the most vegetable juice.

3. Supply your vegetable juice shop with pasteurizers that help prolong the flavor and shelf life of your product.

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Look for filters equipped to handle vegetable juice

Shop for self-cleaning liquid filters that are suitable for making vegetable juice. Some filters include automatic and pump controls, pressure monitors and other filtration components.

I recommend: Russell Finex manufactures liquid vegetable juicers and strainers that don't require replacement bags or cartridges. Pentair Industrial sells standard and custom vegetable juice filters, bags and strainer baskets to help manage your beverage production. Ferguson Perforating offers vegetable juice filters made from stainless steel, plastic and aluminum.

Purchase juicers or extractors that give you 100% vegetable juice

Find manufacturers that provide the right machinery for handling raw vegetable juice, and other food and beverage applications.

I recommend: Bepex International features several extracting and juicing solutions such as the belt drainer, S-press and V-press. Press Technology and Manufacturing also distributes equipment for vegetable juice extracting.

Use pasteurizers to help vegetable juice retain its freshness

Pasteurization systems such as brewing and heat transfer technology add to the quality of vegetable based juice.

I recommend: A&B Process Systems manufactures stainless steel tanks for fluid transfer, clean-in-place and thermal operations. Lyco Manufacturing handles pouch pasteurizers and other equipment for safe food and beverage processing. Hydrostatic pressure systems from Avure Technologies can extend shelf life when canning vegetable juice.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Grow or purchase organic vegetables to include in your vegetable juice recipes. Many vegetable juice companies are selling more organic brands. Organic vegetable juice is considered healthier because no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or other chemicals were used to grow the vegetables.

As Americans attempt to improve their diets and live more healthy lives, juices of all types are becoming more popular. Nutrition experts recommend at least three servings of vegetables a day. Since the American diet tends to run low on vegetables, consumers are turning to vegetable juice as an easy, delicious way to get the veggies they need. But when purchasing vegetable juice for your business, you and your customers need to understand some common lingo that you will find on bottled juice labels. Not understanding vegetable juice key terms can lead you to purchase products that may not be as nutritious as you'd hoped.

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Juice drink

Any product called a juice drink has ingredients other than juice and water. This can included added sweeteners. Other names for juice drinks are juice cocktails, punch, fusions or blends.

I recommend: Education.com offers information about the nutritional differences between 100% juice and juice drinks.

Squeezed juice

To make squeezed vegetable juice, you take fresh vegetables and process them in a juicer or hand squeeze them. Squeezed juice doesn't undergo pasteurization, so you need to refrigerate it.

I recommend: Natural News Network discusses the health benefits of drinking freshly squeezed juice.

Pasteurized

Pasteurized vegetable juice is juice heated in order to reduce the harm of any bacteria, molds, protozoa or yeasts the juice might contain.

I recommend: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains why drinking pasteurized juice is the safest option.

Concentrate

Vegetable juice made from concentrate is real juice put through an evaporating machine until it becomes partially solid. You may have to add water to turn it into a liquid again. 'Not from concentrate' means the juice hasn't undergone this process.

I recommend: Ohio State University gives information on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Standard Nutrient Database, which states that juice from concentrate is just as healthy as non-concentrated juice.

Aseptic container

In order to make a juice shelf stable, companies need to package the vegetable juice in an aseptic container.

I recommend: How Products Are Made explains in more detail what aseptic containers are and provides information on their invention and the process to make them.

100% pure

Vegetable juice labeled 100% pure, or 100% juice, contain only vegetable juice. Companies can add water and vitamins and still remain in this category.

I recommend: To learn more, visit Consumers Union, which explains what the 100% pure label does and doesn't mean.

When it comes to the beverages that consumers are purchasing, one of the most obvious changes in recent years has been the preference for vegetable juices. Just as obvious to market watchers has been the trend toward raw fruit juices, organic veggie juice and even peculiar flavor combinations for vegetable juice cocktail. Knowing vegetable juice types and styles helps you make informed decisions about the right kind of juices that will rapidly disappear from your store's coolers.

To get a sense for the trendy flavors they're experimenting with, start your search for different vegetable juice types and styles by checking out websites of the most well-known manufacturers. Then enhance your knowledge of newfangled veggie juices by surveying popular recipes. Follow these steps as you investigate the vegetable juice types and styles most in demand:

1. Get a sense for the most popular veggie juice brands and flavor combinations that leading juice manufacturers are referring to as fusion juice.

2. Learn more about the different types of organic vegetable juice that the health-conscious crowd seem to prefer.

3. Find popular recipes for the newest type of vegetable juice, known as green juice.

Action Steps
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Look over popular types of fusion juice that leading vegetable juice companies turn to

Perhaps the first thing you'll learn is that vegetable juices today are much more than just the spicy tomato-based concoctions they used to be. A major new type of vegetable juice is known as fusion juice, a blend of vegetable and fruit flavors.

I recommend: V8 sells about 8 different types of fusion vegetable juices. American Soy makes Vruit, juices with unique blends of vegetable and fruit juices. Read the suggestions for making your own fusion juices at Earth Portals.

Assess the appeal of organic vegetable juice

Organic recipes for vegetable fruit juice appeal to more health-conscious patrons that are not afraid to experiment with unique flavor blends.

I recommend: Wheat grass, green, carrot and beet root are popular types of organic vegetable juices at Wild Bunch Juice. First Juice offers the organic flavors most appealing to kids. Biotta is the unique type of purely organic vegetable juice marketed by Oh So Natural.

Become familiar with recipes for green vegetable juice

Satisfy your curiosity about types and styles of vegetable juices by studying the fruit and raw vegetable juice recipes dominating the most faddish recipes, chief among them being green vegetable juice.

I recommend: Soy Milk Quick offers recipe suggestions for green vegetable juice, known as "Simply Green" and "Spinach Surprise." Find Cabbage Juice and Spinach Juice recipes for green juice at The Best of Raw Food and Juice Recipes. Juice Recipes offers different variations for broccoli vegetable juice and cabbage-spinach juice. Recipes on Help With Cooking represent the more well known types of homemade vegetable juices that are made with watercress.