California’s New Powerhouse Organic Juice Company

Northern and Southern California are about to be united in more ways than Highway 1.

San Francisco's Project Juice and Irvine's Ritual Wellness just announced that the two juice brands will be merging under the name Project Juice, making it the Golden State's largest certified-organic locally-sourced cold-pressed juice company.

"As a company, we were thinking about what we wanted to do next and ended up meeting the founders of Project Juice," Ritual Wellness co-founder Marra St. Clair says. "We quickly realized how similar we are: our commitment to organic ingredients, not using frozen vegetables, knowing where the produce is coming from. We started a dialogue and realized how no one in the juice industry talks to each other. It made us want to join forces."

The new company will have a combined total of nine stores, with five original Project Juice stores in the Bay Area and four Ritual Wellness stores in Orange County and San Diego, in addition to the e-commerce site that ships nationally. And while the company is now called Project Juice, it was an equal parts merger (the decision on the name was based off of a roundtable discussion).

The original Ritual Wellness stores now bear the Project Juice signage as of Thursday, and while all of the locations will eventually have the same menu, Ritual Wellness product is being slowly phased out so it doesn't go to waste. Ingredients will continue to be sourced locally by region.

"Both of our companies' products are known for their health benefits," St. Clair says. "We don't have high-sugar juices that are gateway juices for the masses unlike some of our competitors; we cater to the people who have a little more juicing experience."

As for the future of the brand, St. Clair hints at Project Juice opening more locations over the next year, so it's our guess that Californians from Santa Rosa to Santa Barbara will soon know the Project Juice way, too. —Jamie McKillop

For more information, visit www.projectjuice.com

(Photos: Facebook.com/RitualWellness and Facebook.com/ProjectJuice)