Kaspar Basse, Founder and Chairman of Joe & The Juice

Cosmo Bostander on Joven at Use (Juice) Strategy and Operations

• Current Scale and Trajectory

  • The company currently operates just above 300 stores globally across four continents.
  • Founder Cosmo Bostander views success through culture and attitude rather than traditional size metrics, noting that 300 stores is negligible compared to major burger chains in the U.S.
  • Forward-looking goal for five years is expansion to 2,500 stores.
  • Long-term strategic aim is to codify the company's academic approach to employee development into a physical academy.

• Human Capital and Culture as Leading Indicators

  • Bostander identifies "meaningfulness," enthusiasm, team spirit, and leadership as critical leading indicators that predict financial KPIs (e.g., Same-Store Sales, EBITDA) before they appear.
  • The company operates on the premise that no store problem has occurred in 17 years that was not caused by an incoherent or less enthusiastic team.
  • Four specific parameters are tracked to measure employee engagement: social belonging, personal progression/growth, perception of leadership, and purpose.
  • Leadership quality is prioritized above corporate purpose; employees will not find meaning in a mission if they dislike their direct manager.

• Business Model Differentiation

  • Joven at Use maintains a made-to-order model for all products (sandwiches, juices, coffee) rather than using pre-packaged solutions common in the industry.
  • This strategy is designed to prevent job simplification, ensuring staff engage in complex tasks like recipe sequencing to avoid flavor contamination.
  • The company argues that excessive process simplification in retail reduces skill development and fails to engage the workforce effectively.
  • Core brand values include health awareness, waste reduction, local produce, and fair farming, which were integrated organically rather than as a late-stage add-on.

• Technology and Culture Synergy

  • Technology is viewed as an enabler for scaling while preserving company culture, countering the typical risk of "soul loss" during rapid growth.
  • Bostander believes an "honest people company" can leverage technology to build per-unit performance and cross-market consistency without sacrificing the human element.
  • Technology is intended to simplify operational issues that would otherwise conflict with the time-intensive training required to maintain the made-to-order standard.

• Global Expansion Challenges

  • The company faces no fundamental cultural barriers in expansion; the core requirement is aligning the four human parameters (belonging, growth, leadership, purpose) regardless of location.
  • While training methods must adapt to local education levels (e.g., differences between New York and Scandinavia), the fundamental challenge remains consistent.
  • The workforce demographic (ages 18–30) is treated as a renewable "raw material" that allows for continuous global scaling.

• Founder's Perspective on Success

  • Bostander rejects the notion of a specific "tipping point" where the business is fully validated; he views the journey as continuous with evolving opportunities.
  • Success is defined by the ability to anticipate team fluctuations and intervene before financial metrics like SSS decline, rather than reacting to falling numbers.