Exploring Life & Business with Ja’marah Stovall of Juice Theory

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ja’marah Stovall

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I used to live in Lansing for college and I was a frequent customer of a local juice bar called Juice Nation. I started to research the herbs and supplements they offered in their juices and learned a lot of the benefits of natural juices. Years later my mom bought me a juicer and I started juicing for myself and my family. I took it more serious when my grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer and I started coming up with different recipes to try to help combat her side effects from chemotherapy. I gave out samples to my coworkers, friends, family members, and even my students and then I started to sell them and things have been moving up since then for me.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not! Some of my struggles were learning how to independently run a business from scratch. I started my business by myself with additional support from my family. When I officially launched my business, I had just lost my job and I wasn’t working with a lot but I received a lot of support from my community which helped me a lot as a start-up local business. One of the most challenging things I would say overall was location. I do not own a storefront, which makes my business technically a mobile-business and that isn’t always easy with customers all over the Detroit/metro-Detroit area.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Juice Theory is a local black-woman owned business that makes cold-pressed juices. The name ‘Juice Theory’ and our juices are all inspired by elements of music that are a part of African-American culture. Growing up in Detroit or what some like to call Motown, music is a part of our daily lives and music brings communities together. The purpose of Juice Theory being relative to music is to bring back a sense of community to our neighborhoods and encourage wellness socially and mentally.

Brand-wise, I am most proud of the community work that we have done with youth-centered organizations like the Detroit PAL League and To Girls, From Women Mentoring group. Juice Theory supplied juices for the youth and staff in both organizations and spoke about entrepreneurship, as well as providing social-emotional awareness lessons to youth to bridge the gap between making healthy choices and how healthy choices can impact our mental health and social awareness.

What sets Juice Theory apart from other juicing business is that our owner is a former educator and aside from offering juices we also look to partner with nonprofit organizations and businesses that serve youth and other groups that generally do not have access to fresh juices and also incorporate workshops based on the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework targeted towards each specific audience. Doing so allows us to tie in our passion for love, community and juice.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
When I think of success, I think of changing the world. Not in a winning the humanitarian award of the year type of change, but the small things that make life better for others based on your spark. Everyone has their own spark and when you find it, using it to help others and change their worlds even it’s only by a little bit is what success looks like.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://juice-theory.square.site/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juicetheory._?igsh=ODA5c21ibTN2eTJw
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1BGDaLwxBP/?mibextid=LQQJ4d