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A healthier and more environmentally conscious juice was the goal when Tom and Amy Barnouw of Fairfield started Planet Fuel a little more than a year ago. With four of their initially anticipated six flavors launched, they are on the right path.
With neither of us coming from a beverage industry background, so much of this is self taught, Tom says in their Fairfield home. Their children are in another room watching cartoons, while the family dog happily trots through the front yard, pretending to not get into trouble. Throughout the house, packaged cases of Planet Fuel are in small stacks.
Tom holds down a position in IT with a major sports entertainment company, and Amy was trained as an environmental activist. When they started a family, they wanted to provide their own children with healthier juice alternatives, focusing on less added sugars and an emphasis on organics. We used to buy juices and water them down, Amy says. We just believed we could make something better.
That faith has grown into a business. They sell their products in 60 locations and plan to grow. They want to first saturate their backyard market before going regional. So far, both are happy with their success.
Happiness has its cost, though. Running a beverage company is a job with few breaks. Tom keeps his IT job while Amy handles many of the day-to-day tasks. Those 60 locations need deliveries, and Planet Fuel has only two employees: Tom and Amy. They are beginning to look toward hiring, but every decision is calculated to make sure it is the right one at the right time. You can most certainly grow too fast, Tom says, relaying stories of other entrepreneurs who expanded faster than they could keep up.
The Barnouws want to see their juices in more hands. We would love to see dramatic growth in the next year, Amy says. This summer is our first repeat season. In the next year, I would love to see it grow beyond what Tom and I could ever do on our own.
They won't compromise their standards, which also bears a cost. Planet Fuel uses aluminum bottles instead of juice boxes or plastics. Amy says it is important to have something that could be recapped and put back in the refrigerator to reduce waste. The aluminum is more easily recyclable. Those choices, however, increase production costs and keep the profits more modest. It's the right thing to do though, says Amy.
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