Commercial Juicers: UK Buyer’s Guide for Cafés & Juice Bars 2026

Caterzone supplies commercial juicers to cafés, juice bars, and health-food sites across the UK, and the machine that looks cheapest on the shelf is frequently the most expensive one to own. Juicer economics are driven by two numbers that never appear in the headline price: how much juice you extract from each kilo of fruit, and how many minutes a day your staff spend cleaning the machine.

This guide covers juicer types, yield, realistic throughput, cleaning time, UK food safety, and running costs, so you can choose the right commercial juicer for your volume.

What is the difference between a centrifugal and a slow juicer?

A centrifugal juicer shreds produce against a fast-spinning mesh basket and flings the juice outward through the mesh. It is quick, it handles hard produce like apples and carrots well, and it is generally cheaper. The trade-offs are that it whips air into the juice, producing foam and faster separation, and that it extracts slightly less from the same fruit.

A slow or masticating juicer crushes produce with an auger turning at 40–80rpm and presses the pulp against a screen. It runs quietly, produces 15–25% more juice from the same weight of produce, retains colour noticeably longer, and is the only practical way to juice leafy greens, wheatgrass, and herbs — a centrifugal basket simply spins these past the blade without extracting much at all. If your menu includes green juices, the decision is already made for you.

Citrus is a separate category. Oranges, lemons, and grapefruit are best handled by a dedicated citrus press or reamer, which extracts far more efficiently than either general-purpose type and produces the clean, pulp-controlled juice customers expect.

What juicer do you need for a busy café?

Volume decides the machine, and the threshold is sharper than most operators expect. For 20–40 fresh orange juices a day, a professional citrus juicer is the correct purchase: cheap, fast, mechanically simple, and easy to train on. The cost is labour — staff must halve every single orange, which is fine at 30 juices and intolerable at 100. A refurbished 230W professional citrus juicer covers this bracket well.

Above roughly 40 juices a day, an automatic orange juicer that takes whole fruit from a hopper, extracts, and ejects the peel changes the operation entirely. It runs 20–30 oranges a minute, requires no preparation, and turns fresh juice from a task into a product you can display and sell on sight. A machine such as the refurbished Zummo Z40A automatic orange juicer is a serious investment, but at 100 juices a day the labour saving alone justifies it inside a year.

For mixed produce — apple, carrot, beetroot, ginger, greens — a commercial multi-purpose juicer such as the LI-500 or the compact LL-60 gives you a broader menu than a citrus press ever can.

Commercial juicer types compared

Type	Best produce	Yield	Throughput	UK price
Manual citrus press	Citrus only	High	5–10 juices/hour	£150–£300
Professional citrus juicer	Citrus only	High	30–60 juices/hour	£200–£500
Automatic orange juicer	Whole oranges	High	20–30 oranges/min	£2,500–£6,000
Centrifugal juicer	Hard fruit and veg	Moderate	Fast	£400–£1,200
Slow / masticating juicer	Greens, soft and hard	Highest	Slower	£350–£1,100

How much juice does a commercial juicer produce per kilo?

Yield is the number that decides your margin, and it is worth measuring rather than assuming. A typical orange yields 40–50% of its weight as juice on a good citrus press. Slow juicers extract measurably more from the same produce than centrifugal machines — commonly 15–25% more on soft fruit and greens, less dramatically on hard produce.

Put that in money. A café using 50kg of oranges a week at, say, £1.40/kg spends about £3,600 a year on fruit. A 20% yield difference is worth roughly £700 a year in juice you either sell or throw away in the pulp bin — every year, on one product line. That comfortably exceeds the purchase price difference between a mediocre juicer and a good one, which is why yield deserves to be the first question you ask rather than the last.

Test before you commit if you can: weigh 5kg of your actual produce, juice it, and weigh the output. Suppliers' yield claims are made on ideal fruit at ideal ripeness, and your fruit is neither.

How long does a commercial juicer take to clean?

Every juicer must be stripped, washed, and sanitised at least daily, and more often for citrus, where sugars build quickly and ferment. This is the hidden running cost, and it is the reason many expensive juicers end up unused in a cupboard within six months.

Count the parts before you buy. A machine with four dishwasher-safe components takes about five minutes to strip and reassemble. One with twelve fiddly parts, a fine mesh basket that needs a brush, and seals that must be picked out with a fingernail takes twenty-five. Done twice a day, that difference is roughly 240 hours a year — around a week and a half of paid labour — spent on cleaning rather than serving. Ask to see the machine dismantled before purchase, and check whether parts are genuinely dishwasher safe or merely "washable".

Pulp handling matters alongside cleaning. Machines with an external pulp bin can run continuously; those with an internal pulp basket must be stopped and emptied every few kilos, which is a real constraint at volume.

UK food safety, HACCP and juice

Fresh juice is a ready-to-eat food, and the controls are stricter than many café operators realise. Wash all produce before juicing. Juice served immediately is straightforward, but any juice held for later service must be refrigerated at 8°C or below — and 5°C is a sensible working target — with a clearly defined shelf life. Under HACCP, fresh juice needs a documented use-by discipline; unpasteurised juice held too long is a genuine microbiological risk, not a paperwork exercise.

Cross-contamination is the other control point. The same juicer handling raw produce and dispensing a ready-to-eat product means the machine's cleanliness is a critical control, so the daily strip-down needs to be scheduled, recorded, and checked rather than left to whoever closes. If you juice for allergen-sensitive customers — nut milks made in the same machine, or celery, which is a named UK allergen — you need either a dedicated machine or a documented full clean between uses.

Commercial juicers are portable appliances and should be PAT tested annually under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. Check blade and mesh condition at each service; a cracked centrifugal basket spinning at speed is genuinely dangerous and should be taken out of use immediately.

How much does a commercial juicer cost in the UK?

Manual and semi-automatic citrus juicers cost £150–£500. Centrifugal and multi-purpose commercial juicers run £400–£1,200, and slow juicers £350–£1,100. Fully automatic orange juicers cost £2,500–£6,000 new, with refurbished units bringing them within reach of an independent café.

Electricity is a rounding error here — even a 1kW juicer running an hour a day costs under £100 a year at 28p/kWh. The costs that matter are fruit, labour, and consumables. Budget for replacement mesh baskets and seals, which are typically £30–£150 depending on machine, and check parts availability before buying: an automatic juicer without a UK spares channel is a large capital item with a short life.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a centrifugal and a slow juicer?

A centrifugal juicer shreds produce against a fast-spinning mesh basket and flings the juice out, working quickly on hard produce but introducing more air, more foam, and slightly lower yield. A slow (masticating) juicer crushes produce with an auger at 40–80rpm, giving 15–25% higher yield, better colour retention, and the only practical way to juice leafy greens and wheatgrass.

What juicer do I need for a busy café?

For 20–40 fresh orange juices a day, a professional citrus juicer is right — cheap, fast, and simple, though staff must halve every fruit. Above that, an automatic orange juicer that takes whole fruit from a hopper and ejects the peel removes the labour bottleneck entirely, running 20–30 oranges a minute.

How much juice does a commercial juicer produce per kilo?

A typical orange yields 40–50% of its weight as juice on a good citrus press, and slow juicers extract measurably more from the same produce than centrifugal machines. Over a year, a 20% yield difference on 50kg of oranges a week is worth more than the difference in purchase price.

How long does a commercial juicer take to clean?

Every juicer must be stripped, washed, and sanitised at least daily, and more often for citrus where sugars build quickly. Count the parts before buying: a machine with four dishwasher-safe components takes about five minutes, while one with twelve fiddly parts takes twenty-five — twice a day, that is roughly a week of paid labour a year.

How much does a commercial juicer cost in the UK?

Manual and semi-automatic citrus juicers cost £150–£500. Centrifugal and multi-purpose commercial juicers run £400–£1,200, and slow juicers £350–£1,100. Fully automatic orange juicers cost £2,500–£6,000 new, with refurbished units bringing them within reach of an independent café.

Where to buy commercial juicers in the UK

Caterzone stocks commercial juicers from professional citrus presses to refurbished automatic orange juicers. Browse the commercial juicer collection, or consider the refurbished professional citrus juicer for a café under 40 juices a day, the LI-500 commercial juicer for mixed produce, or the Zummo Z40A automatic orange juicer for high-volume fresh orange service.

For the rest of your drinks and prep station, read our commercial coffee machine buyer's guide and our commercial vegetable prep machine guide. For help matching a juicer to your daily volume, call Caterzone on +44 7787 069044 or email info@thecaterzone.co.uk.