What frozen drink is made with crushed ice and fruit, is fat free, cholesterol free, and represents sales in excess of $1 billion-a-year, industrywide? A "smoothie," you say? You’re right, but at Subway Restaurants it’s called a Fruizle™ smoothie. A great-tasting blend of real fruit, fruit juices, fruit flavors and nutrients blended with ice, Fruizlesmoothies were developed by and for Subway Restaurants in selected market areas in 1997.

Fruizle’s growing popularity has prompted Subway to develop a Fruizle Express program so that more Subway restaurants have an opportunity to offer, and, of course, more customers have an opportunity to try this refreshing and healthful smoothie. For the Express installation, four Fruizle flavors are available: Berry ‘Lishus (strawberry, banana); Sunrise Refresher (mango, orange, tangerine, passion fruit); Pineapple Delight (pineapple, banana, orange, coconut); and Peach Pizazz (peach, strawberry, kiwi).

"Healthy, made-to-order fruit drinks complement our product line very nicely," says Cindy Kopazna, new program development, project leader. "There has been tremendous interest from our franchise community in offering this exciting new program. Approximately 1,250 Subway locations are expected to offer Fruizle Express this year."

The full-serve Fruizle program offers 12 flavors, with the addition of blend-ins such as ginkgo biloba, ginseng, multivitamin, protein blend and antioxidant blend. The drinks are fat free in the 12-ounce size, however, in the 24-ounce size there is one gram of fat. New marketing and advertising materials on Fruizle are being utilized, as well as a local market :30 radio commercial and a TV commercial.