Made in Virginia 2015: LUMI Juice, Charlottesville

LUMI Juices

Hillary Lewis believes fruit and vegetables do their best work under pressure. Lewis’ Charlottesville-based LUMI juices—an acronym for “Love U, Mean It”—are created using a high-pressure processing machine, which Lewis says “looks like a giant spaceship,” to pack two pounds of produce into every 16-ounce bottle. Lewis, 29, had the idea for LUMI while in business school at UVA. After graduating in May 2013, she launched the business that July, had products on shelves by October and now has LUMI in approximately 300 stores and growing. The organic produce is first sliced by a rotating blade then slowly squeezed by a hydraulic press, extracting nothing but juice. Instead of settling for the traditional heat pasteurization process, which Lewis says “kills 40–60 percent of naturally occurring nutrients,” her NASA-looking machine kills bacteria with extreme water pressure, preserving the juice without damaging the flavor or nutrients. The result is a powerful bottle of liquid produce in alluringly alliterative flavors like Piedmont Pineapple and Miami Mango. $3.25–$7.99. LUMIJuice.com