Smoothie King

Smoothie King Franchises Inc.(doing business asSmoothie King)is an Americanprivately heldcompany that operates a chain of retail stores that specialize in sellingsmoothies.  Founded in 1973, the company was bought by a South Korean franchisee in 2012.  In the late 2010s, the company was focusing on whole and unmodified ingredients.
On January 1, 2013, theCenter for Science in the Public Interestawarded the Peanut Power Plus Grape Smoothie their Xtreme Eating "dis-honor" for its healthlessness; consisting of "peanut butter, banana, sugar, and grape juice", a 40-US-fluid-ounce (1,200 ml) cup had 1,460 calories (6,100 kJ) and 214 grams (7.5 oz) of sugar.
As of March 2019, the company was focusing on its "Clean Blends initiative" whereby stores' menus featured more smoothies with whole fruits and vegetables, and lackingfood coloring,artificial flavor,preservatives, andadded sugar.
Smoothie King was founded in 1973 inKenner, Louisianaby Steve and Cindy Kuhnau.As of November 2012, Smoothie King was still aprivately held company.
In 2012, Wan Kim—aSouth KoreanSmoothie King franchisee since 2002—bought the company from the Kuhnaus.  Kim then acquiredUS$58 million(equivalent to about $77M in 2023) from Standard Charter Private Equity and National Pension Fund to grow the company.  To succeed in this growth, Kim had several plans for Smoothie King.  Kim planned to open 800 newfranchisesand the company's first 200 corporately-owned stores.  He also planned to experiment with selling salads andwrapsat these latter locations (in South Korea, they made over 20% of Kim's revenue).
In 2009, Smoothie King's per-storerevenuewas about$285,000, and had reached$362,000by 2012.Corporate-wide, revenues were$372.5 millioninfiscal year2017, and$415.7 millionin fiscal year 2018.
In early 2014, Smoothie King contracted with theNew Orleans Pelicansto renamethe New Orleans Arena,Smoothie King Center.  The contract was for 2014–2024, and Smoothie King has the option to extend the contract through 2034.  TheNational Basketball Associationrequired that all Smoothie King products be tested before the deal was completed, to ensure that they didn't contain any league-banned substances; testing was an eight-month process.
CEO since 2012,Wan Kim had Tom O'Keefe as Smoothie King'scorporate presidentin 2014,and in February 2019 he replaced Jennifer Herskind with Rebecca Miller (previously ofOn the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina) aschief marketing officer.Kim further shuffled his corporate positions in September 2019:chief operating officerDan Harmon added president to his plate (replacing O'Keefe), chief development officer Kevin King became the chief business development officer, and Miller was promoted to head of field marketing.
By 2012, Smoothie King was headquartered inCovington, Louisiana.  That year, however, the company took advantage ofUS$2.4 million(equivalent to about $3M in 2023) of incentives to move toMetairie, Louisiana, approximately 40 miles (64 km) to the south.As of August 2021, Smoothie King was based inCoppell, Texas.
Predominantly in the United States, Smoothie King also has locations inSouth Korea, theCayman Islands,Trinidad and Tobago,and previously had shops inSingapore(which opened in December 2012, but permanently closed in 2016).CEO Wan Kim has explicitly detailed the company's avoidance of cold-weather locations due to other smoothie companies' failures there.In 2018, the company opened its 1001st store.