Planet Smoothie is an American-born brand focused on delivering real fruit blends in a wide variety of options to fit people’s unique tastes and lifestyles. Wally Ibrahim, CEO of Planet Smoothie Australia, played a pivotal part in bringing them down under – and is now the proud owner of three metro locations in Melbourne, with a fourth location just opened in Geelong.
We sat down with Wally to talk about all things Planet Smoothie, and how Tyro has helped him on his journey.
The story of Planet Smoothie
Planet Smoothie is the brainchild of actor Martin Sprock. He saw a gap in the market and wanted to fill it, so got to work and brought the brand to life in the US in 1995.
After a few sales, Wally’s parent company Kahala Brands ended up owning Planet Smoothie, and that’s how he became aware of the business. This discovery was a pivotal moment in his career. “I thought that fits sort of me as a person. So I investigated that – went, yep, that’s absolutely perfect.” Now, he’s the sole owner and operator of Planet Smoothie in Australia.
What makes the Planet Smoothie different
As the name suggests, Planet Smoothie is all about smoothies. “We want to make sure that we create the perfect smoothie to suit your lifestyle and your taste buds. So we do nothing but smoothies.” says Wally.
Besides perfecting the art of smoothies, Planet Smoothie set themselves apart in a multitude of ways, from what they serve to what they serve it in.
Product variety
Other than the Signature Smoothies, each drink is aimed at a different lifestyle or need: Planet Lite, Energy, Superfood, Protein, Meal Replacement, and Kids. They’ve really carved their corner with these categories and are pretty much the only national smoothie company or beverage company in Australia that has a dedicated kids menu, according to Wally.
Their Blasts (protein powders) are also a big hit. “We have eight different proteins that are either in some of our smoothies or you can add it. We’ve got a lot of gym-going people that come and they might add two or three different blasts to their smoothie to make sure that they’re getting enough protein intake for the day.”
Customisation
Customers can also customise their drink so it suits their taste buds to a tee. “Our customer can add an ingredient, change an ingredient, delete an ingredient. So if they see one of our smoothies and they go, ‘You know what? I don’t like strawberries. I want to change that to blueberries,’ by all means, they can do that at no cost. They might go, ‘I want additional strawberries’ and for all of that, we only charge a flat fee of $1 so they can come and get any additional ingredients for a dollar.”
Environmental initiatives
Conscious of their environmental impact, Planet Smoothie Australia uses completely compostable paper products, and have from the get-go. The only non-paper products are their plastic lids, which are still completely compostable, and their straws (an essential part of the Smoothie experience) that are made entirely of bamboo.
Planet Smoothie also don’t do paper receipts; instead, they just send it straight to the customer’s email address, if they want one. “I don’t think a lot of people realise that paper receipts are not recyclable,” says Wally. “A lot of businesses are thinking about it, a lot of companies that are wanting to adopt it, haven’t. Personally, I think digital receipts increase efficiency and obviously save costs. And as a startup business, that’s really important for me.”
How Tyro helps Planet Smoothie
When starting out, Tyro was an easy choice for Wally as they ticked all the boxes.
“I remember seeing a lot of Tyro on social media and on TV thinking, ‘What’s going on? Who’s this company?’ I did a bit of research and I thought to myself as a new player in the market, it’d be really interesting to see how they go and how they operate. I investigated pricing and I thought, ‘Wow, it’s pretty sharp.’
“The customer service that initially I was exposed to was second to none. When we first got set up with Tyro, if a staff member ever needed help with say, a refund, Tyro’s Customer Support team was great at assisting them”
“For me, it was the marketing, the pricing, and the customer service. Those three were big elements for me. It was tick, tick, tick, and I was like, ‘Yep, I’m happy to land with Tyro’.”
Fast forward to now, and Tyro remains a key team player for Planet Smoothie Australia. “The use of the EFTPOS machine for both customers and staff is really a big thing for me. A lot of our night and weekend staff are juniors. So I just got to make sure that’s really, really easy for them. And obviously, with Tyro being able to integrate, they don’t have to touch the machine. We just enter into our POS and the customer taps away.”
For Planet Smoothie customers “the Tyro EFTPOS machine is hard for customers to miss, and placing it right on the countertop makes it easy for our customers to tap and pay. Many of our customers use either cards, mobile phones, or watches to pay so obviously the easier we can make it for these payment types the better.”
“Tyro is also a known brand, so I believe our customers trust Tyro”
Rolling out to additional locations has also been easy for Wally and his team:
“Once set up, Tyro EFTPOS machines are basically set and forget. With the option of using a 3G back up, I don’t stress about our EFTPOS machines ever being down.”
The fourth Australian Planet Smoothie store has just opened and the brand is actively going to go out to market and see if anyone wants to become a sub-franchise to expand across the country. As they do, Wally has Tyro in front of mind. “Now, I can’t dictate who sub-franchises use from an EFTPOS facility point of view. What I can do is when they’re doing training, they’ll see it in action. I’m sure the pricing will be right, so I’m pretty confident that they’ll probably choose Tyro and then they’ll obviously get the same level of support that my company-owned stores are getting as well.”
Advice for aspiring business owners
As a successful business owner, we asked Wally what advice he’d give to someone looking to start in the food and beverage industry. Here’s what he had to say.
“I think initially you need to build a really solid business plan. You always need a reference point. One of my favorite sayings is ‘you train harder than you play.’ So just a lot of time spent on business plan, talking to people who are currently doing it, getting your head around what that looks like.
And from that point of view, I just think anyone potentially wanting to start a business, regardless of what it is, just needs to have a solid group of people around them just to keep them motivated when things are tough because it’s going to happen. But I also think it’s good to have those people around you as well when things are great so they can keep you in check.
So just to be true to yourself, be really, really honest. And if you jump out of bed every morning with the right attitude, doesn’t matter what life throws at you, you’ll be successful.”
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