Eric Helms is the founder and CEO of Juice Generation, a chain of juice and smoothie bars in New York City. He bought the exclusive rights to a year's supply of pitaya, a little-known softball-sized fruit of a cactus found in Nicaragua. The Vietnamese dragonfruit is the pitaya's Asian cousin. To prevent agricultural pests from entering the United States, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) has mandated that only the fruit's frozen pulp may be shipped from Central America. The pitaya reportedly tastes like a cross between strawberries and wheatgrass and is said to contain an antioxidant believed to protect from cancer-causing free radicals. David Wolfe, author of Superfoods, is enthusiastic: "It's one of my favorite fruits of all time. It's superhigh in vitamin C and superhydrating." Yet even within health food circles, the fruit is still largely unknown.
The superpremium juice business that focuses on healthy exotic nectars (such as pomegranate and, most recently, the açaí berry) is a multibillion-dollar enterprise. The big players all have their brands-for example, Odwalla (Coca-Cola), Naked (PepsiCo), and Jamba Juice. Celebrities such as Russell Simmons and Gwyneth Paltrow have endorsed juicing. Selma Hayek, a longtime juicer, cofounded the Cooler Cleanse juice brand with Helms.
The term superfruit is a marketing term, referring to fruits heavy in antioxidants, but without any scientific or regulatory definition, says Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the USDA's antioxidants research laboratory. "As most natural fruits contain one or more positive nutrient attributes," Blumberg explains, "any one might be considered by someone 'super' in its own way." An industry primer is blunt: "Superfruits are the product of strategy, not something you find growing on a tree."28 POM Wonderful lost a lawsuit to the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising of its pomegranate juice.
Helms' Juice Generation partnered with a factory in Nicaragua that employs only single mothers to scoop and blend the fruit. The women pour the pulp into 3.5-ounce packets that are frozen for shipping. A packet of the Pink Pitaya Coco Blend, a mix of coconut, banana, and pitaya, costs $8.45. "You have to give people what they want, but also what they should be trying," Helms believes.

Your Task. Write a sales letter or a marketing e-mail promoting the Pink Pitaya Coco Blend. Your audience in this campaign will probably be gyms with in-house juice bars. Introduce the exotic pitaya fruit and explain its benefits. Cull information from the scenario to include a testimonial. Make sure your claims are ethical and legal.