How Cal Poly grad is growing her unique juice business, one bottle after another

Briana Medvecki has been playing the long game with her skin for years.

Struggling with acne, redness and flare-ups, Medvecki, who graduated from Cal Poly in city and regional planning in 2024, was one signature away from getting on Accutane, a prescription medication that could heal her skin, but something stopped her back in November 2024.

“I’m a very holistic person, like I barely take Motrin when I’m on my period, and so even though I really wanted to heal my skin, taking Accutane is against everything that I believe in,” Medvecki told The Tribune.

Instead, Medvecki waited until Black Friday to purchase an at-home juicer, the Nama J2 Cold Press Juicer, “the best on the market,” Medvecki said. She started making her own personal ginger turmeric shots after researching the health benefits of the roots and spices that could potentially help her skin “from the inside out.”

“As I was doing research into the gut health and the food and everything, I realized, your skin tells you something,” she said. “If you’re struggling with your skin, that means that there’s something else going on, and Accutane maybe would have been a Band-aid, versus me having the opportunity to really problem-solve.”

Three months later, at Headstrong Fit gym, Medvecki got her first-ever compliment on her skin by her spin instructor, who asked if she could purchase Medvecki’s ginger turmeric shots from her.

Medvecki got her first customer in January 2025 and started selling the shots in the gym’s fridge in April.

After growing tired of selling the tiny 2-ounce shot cups, she quickly transitioned to selling a week’s worth of ginger turmeric shots in a 16-ounce glass bottle, labeled with her new business’s name: SLO Pressed.

“I think people see us on Instagram or doing events and media, and think that we’ve been around for a lot longer, but truly we are very new, and we’re growing, but we’re just excited by the positive feedback we’ve received from the community,” she said.

Medvecki’s self-care era did not stop there.

With the help of Clean Machine Kitchen, which lets her use its commercial kitchen for two months rent-free, she was cold-pressing juices to sell in fridges like Headstrong Fit gym, Sol Pilates and Ritual Reform.

The raw cold-pressing process to create a juice includes using a juicer to transform a fruit, vegetable or root to liquid form and has zero processing or preservatives, which means a limited seven-day shelf life for the juice.

“The raw cold-pressed juice, it’s a hard business, because, you have seven days from the second that you make it, there’s seven days for someone to buy it and consume it, which is why I’m really trying to push like a pre-order system,” Medvecki said. “That way, I am able to make exactly how many orders I have for that week and just not having extras in the system.”

She purchased a juicing book and experimented with different recipes, leaving tiny cups of samples for gym-goers to give feedback on her latest creations. Every week, a new juice was pressed and left in the fridges.

What juices are offered at SLO Pressed?

It was not until September that SLO Pressed recipes were finalized.

Now, Medvecki and her team cold-press over 100 juices at their production facility inside CaliPaso every Thursday morning, rotating through four to five different juice recipes every month.

For May, the juices being cold-pressed are the Ginger Appleade, a mix of apple, lemon, ginger and beet for color; the Coastal Refresher, with pineapple, green apple, cucumber, beet and lime; the Daily Detox of green vegetables and fruits; the Morro Blue, a mix of green apple, lime, ginger and blue spirulina; and the Spicy Watermelon with watermelon, cucumber, serrano pepper and mint.

Medvecki’s week’s supply of her classic ginger turmeric shots are still being sold all month long, while every juice has its week to shine and be ordered online and picked up at the member-only studios and gyms for $12.50 a bottle.

However, now everyone can pick up a SLO Pressed juice.

Just recently, the cold-pressed juice business entered a partnership with Buen Dia Coffee at 57 Higuera St., Suite 190, adding a new pick-up location for SLO Pressed juices.

“That’s been a very exciting next step in our business, because previously we were serving a much smaller clientele, specifically the members at those private studios, and now we have our first public location where if you’re not a member at the studios and looking to buy cold-pressed juice, you can easily access it at Buen Dia,” she said.

SLO Pressed also occasionally partners with local gyms and restaurants for a Wellness Reset event, where the cold-pressed juice would be served alongside a Pilates class.

The most recent event was with Shindig Cider, a one-hour Pilates class accompanied by bagels by Gizzy’s Glizzys and a Cider-Mosa involving SLO Pressed and Shindig Cider.

SLO Pressed owner follows ‘feel good, do good’ philosophy for her business

Medvecki has been drinking the juices she cold-presses since she started her juicing journey — with clearer skin to show for it.

When promoting SLO Pressed or attending events, she does not apply makeup, only accessorizing with a bottle of the week’s juice.

“I don’t want to sell people something that I don’t truly believe in, and so if I’m telling people this is gonna clear your skin, I want people to also see that as a reflection of myself,” she said. “Everyone reacts differently to different ingredients, and so I never tell people that it’s gonna be your one-all cure.”

The feedback Medvecki receives so far from customers ranges from helping back pain, skin issues, having higher energy and using the Ginger Appleade to train for a marathon.

“Starting a business is not easy, and there’s been a lot of times where I’ve wanted to quit,” she said. “Then that next day I receive a DM from someone that’s like, ‘Wow, your juices helped me so much,’ and then it just reminds me why I started this.”

For more information

SLO Pressed’s raw cold-pressed juices can be ordered on its website for $12.50 a bottle. They are also available for pick-up in fridges inside Buen Dia Coffee, Headstrong Fit, Sol Pilates and Ritual Reform.

For more information about the business, visit its Instagram or website at slopressed.com.

This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 5:00 AM.