A healthy Boost

The past few years have seen a steady development of the F&B industry with new outlets and restaurants being introduced to the Malaysian market.

One of them is Australian chain Boost Juice Bars Malaysia, which started four years ago at a time when Malaysians were becoming more health conscious.

Dr Soraya Rahim Ismail, managing director of Boost Juice Bars Malaysia, started the venture. Ismail spent most of her youth in London. After receiving her PhD, she joined Accenture, where she met her husband and business partner Nick Tiernan.

Ismail and her husband has worked in Accenture for over nine years before coming across Boost Juice Australia and becoming very passionate customers of the brand. In 2009, Ismail and Tiernan purchased the master franchise for Boost  Juice Australia for Malaysia and Singapore. Since then, the franchise has been acquired by Retail Zoo, whose portfolio of brands include Salsas, Chicken Central and Cibo Espresso.

"Boost is an impulse brand and it works well in high-traffic areas," Ismail says. Traffic flow and visibility are priorities in choose a Boost outlet to capture audiences; therefore, Ismail spends more per square foot on their stores than most F&Bs.

Ismail says because of that, anything that has plenty of frontage and visibility is what we look for and that is why shop lots are not our preferred option.

"Now that we have a lot more brand awareness, we are able to look at shop lot type location. We've opened up our first big format store within Inti College and it has been promising."

Currently, Boost has 24 stores with plans to increase to 40 nationwide by the end of 2014. Ismail hopes to double the number in the next two or three years.

"The current average growth percentage on a like-for-like basis is about 15%. Some of the stores are hitting 30% common growth year-on-year, expanding their market and brand awareness."

Boost is also known for its fun and quirky marketing campaigns. The earlier campaign, The Boost Challenge, rewarded its participants with a free drink for doing a quirky task.

"Even people who don't necessarily drink Boost know the name Boost. It has moved on to a wider audience as a result of our expansion and spending a fair share of money on advertising on radio and utilising social media," says Ismail.

The main Boost franchise has a set of core bestselling products that one can have no matter where they are. The difference with Boost Malaysia as a franchise is it encourages Ismail to conduct their own product development.

"Within our guidelines of health and quality, we have developed Watermelon Lychee Crush and Very Vita C."

Boost consumers generally range between the ages of 18 to 25, mostly women. To date, Boost does all its marketing in-house and engaged Leo Burnett to assist in its public relations.