In Toronto -- and in cities across Canada and North America -- a growing concern about healthy eating and a craze for juice cleanses presents many opportunities for starting a business. For Toronto entrepreneur Rebecca Malen, a particular aspect of juice cleanses stood out. "Juicing sucks. It's difficult, annoying, makes a mess, and when you do it yourself it's hard to get much juice out of a piece of fruit."
A year ago, she started
Total Cleanse out of her home, offering enthusiasts the chance to have detoxifying drinks delivered to their door first thing in the morning. She found a ready market. "People love it," Malen says. "They're obsessed with it." Since launching by herself in July 2009, she's grown Total Cleanse to employ three full-time staff and moved the business from her home to a professional office and kitchen space. Last month, the business took its delivery network national -- in an age of overnight national couriers and online ordering, Malen says a business like hers is able to scale up in short order without investing in much infrastructure.
And Malen sees huge growth ahead. She says that aside from some social media marketing, the business has been built almost exclusively on word of mouth -- and one year in, she feels Total Cleanse has just scratched the surface of the potential national market.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Rebecca Malen, Founder and CEO, Total Cleanse
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