Juicero

Juicero was founded in San Francisco, California, in 2013 by Doug Evans, who served as CEO until October 2016, when former president of Coca-Cola North America Jeff Dunn took over the position. The company's juicing press was originally priced at $699 when it was launched in March 2016, From 2014 to 2017, the San Francisco-based firm received $120 million in startup venture capital from investors. a Chinese company that made a competing cold-press juicing device, the Froothie Juisir, for allegedly infringing its patent, trade dress and trademark, as well as unfair competition and unjust enrichment. The court denied Juicero's motion in October 2017. On September 1, 2017, the company announced that it was suspending sales of the juicer and the packets, repurchasing the juicer from its customers and searching for a buyer for the company and its intellectual property. After its collapse, the company was described in the press as a symbol of a dysfunctional Silicon Valley culture. ==Design and usage==

Produce packs for the Juicero press, containing blends of pulped fruits and vegetables, Each pack had a QR code which was scanned and verified by the Internet-connected machine before it could be used. CEO Jeff Dunn claimed this was a safety feature to prevent packs from being used past their expiration date, and to facilitate food safety recalls, though critics felt that the feature was a form of digital rights management as it would prevent operation of the press with any produce pack not made by the company. Industrial design for the press was completed by Yves Behar's studio Fuseproject, based in San Francisco. ==Criticism==

In 2017, Juicero was the target of widespread mockery and criticism after Bloomberg News published a story showing that the company's produce packs could be squeezed by hand easily and effectively, and that the hand-squeezed juice was nearly indistinguishable in quantity and quality from the output of the company's expensive press device. The company defended its product and its process, claiming that squeezing packs by hand created undue mess and promoted a poor user experience, and later offered full refunds to any customers dissatisfied with their press device. The Juicero device was also criticized for requiring Wi-Fi connection and an app to function. == See also ==