A Liverpool city region manufacturer of juice dispensers is using augmented reality to drive sales and create new jobs. Tony McDonough reports

Wirral juice dispensers manufacturer GenerationJuice is using augmented reality to drive sales, increase productivity and create new jobs.

From its base in Bromborough, GenerationJuice makes app-driven drink dispensers, or drink hubs. They are designed to serve natural juice drinks from concentrate into reusable bottles. It provides an alternative to single use plastic and aluminium cans.

Launching in 2019, the business achieved success in the leisure and hospitality sectors. Now it is targeting emerging markets such as education and healthcare.

Working with the Made Smarter Adoption Programme in the North West, GenerationJuice has developed a digital demo experience using augmented reality. This enables customers to visualise the dispenser on their site while tasting samples of the drinks.

Made Smarter is the UK national industrial digitalisation movement to drive productivity and growth of manufacturing industries.

The app is proving transformational for the business. It eliminates the time-consuming and inefficient face-to-face demonstration process. This can typically tie up two sales staff for half a day.

GenerationJuice estimates that with new marketing activity to generate demo leads, productivity will increase by 600% and turnover by 50%. The technology investment has also created two new jobs.

Co-founder Simon Edwards said: “The pandemic had a significant impact on the business, restricting our access to potential customers. We used the time to rethink the way we approached certain processes.

“Made Smarter’s support came at a crucial time and its support has helped us to shape our digital roadmap and accelerate our ambitions. Our first step is to create more sales opportunities using emerging technologies. This will drive our ambition of building 1,000 dispensers over the next three years.”

By using the app and sending tasting samples of its 180-drink portfolio by courier, GenerationJuice will cut its annual mileage by 20,000. And it estimates its products can offer resource efficiency for its customers in terms of waste reduction, energy savings, and environmental impact.

Donna Edwards, director of Made Smarter’s North West Adoption programme, added: “It is a fantastic example of a small business investing in emerging technologies as a route to growth, prosperity and sustainability.

“GenerationJuice is among hundreds of manufacturers in the region grasping the opportunities offered by Made Smarter. They include expert, impartial technology advice, digital transformation workshops and support with technology investment.”