HOLD THE BLUE-GREEN ALGAE, PLEASE : FIRM JUICES THINGS UP JAMBA'S HOPES TO FLOOD U.S. WITH EXOTIC FRUIT, VEGGIE BLENDS.

Byline: Jennifer Steinhauer The New York Times

First there was frozen yogurt, which was transformed overnight from ice cream's poor cousin into an American snacking staple. Then, there was cafe latte, a treat once reserved for gondolas and exotic outposts and now the morning sustenance of construction workers. Can blue-green algae and Ginkgo biloba be far behind?

The owners of Jamba Juice, a 45-store chain of juice bars serving up fresh and frothy beverage blends - known in juice-business argot as smoothies - are convinced that juice may be the hottest new food item since Starbucks Corp. convinced the world it was a great idea to spend $2 for a cup of coffee.

Here the attraction is not a caffeine jolt, but the supposed healing powers of the mix-ins. (An extract from the leaf of the Ginkgo biloba, a tree common in China and Japan, is thought to strengthen the immune system; blue-green algae are added as a source of vitamin B12.)

Nutrition experts dispute most of the health claims made for these ingredients but acknowledge that they are probably harmless.

While there have been a smattering of juice and smoothie bars around the United States for decades, juice purveyors, capitalizing on Americans' dueling obsessions with healthy eating and sweets, are rolling out juice bars in a big way.

There are now hundreds of juice bars - most of them small and on the West Coast - and new ones pop up almost daily. In California, where the juice bars are most popular, more than 150 companies are now active, up from a handful six years ago, said Linda Renaud, president of Juice Mart, a juice distributor.

While fruit-juice libations have not caught on in the rest of the United States yet, Kirk Perron, Jamba Juice's chairman and chief executive, means to change that. He wants to bring Jamba's Powerberries, Carrot Squeezes and Raspberry Rushes, which sell for about $3 a pop, to 1,000 stores in every region of the country within five years.

And to finance that kind of breakneck expansion, he said, he plans to take his company public sometime in the next two years.

Is it a realistic ambition? John McMillin, a food industry analyst at Prudential Securities, thinks so. ``If coffee bars work, why not juice bars?'' McMillin asked. ``There are four attributes that any consumer is looking for today in food products, and juice bars offer at least three of them: convenience, taste, value and nutrition. While paying $1.50 for a glass of juice may not be a value, healthy snacking is in big time.''

The sudden popularity of fruit-juice concoctions is hardly surprising in a health-obsessed population that has long embraced oat bran, frozen yogurt and fat-free baked goods in a quest to shed pounds and live longer.

Do not be confused, however. Juice bars are not a newfangled Orange Julius, that mall-based franchise of International Dairy Queen that long has fortified teen-agers with orange juice mixed with a foaming substance that no layperson could ever quite identify. Nor are they New York's beloved Papaya King, which marries its fresh juices with greasy 50-cent hot dogs.

Juice bars serve fresh-squeezed or concentrated fruit and vegetable juices, often supplemented with supposed health elixirs like bee pollen for energy, oat fiber for lowering blood cholesterol, and Norwegian dulse (this one a red alga) for body purification, to name a few.

But if juice bars are to move from hipster West Coast fad to national obsession a la coffee, food experts say, the companies must build a strong brand identity that is as recognizable to shoppers as the ubiquitous green storefront of Starbucks, which grew to 1,000 outlets today from 17 in 1987.

And indeed, Jamba Juice picked up some tricks of the beverage trade from Howard Schultz, founder and chief executive of Starbucks, who was one of Perron's original investors and board members.

Jamba Juice, a pastel world of whirling blenders and soy milk, is leading the juice revolution with its fast-paced growth. ``Jamba Juice triggered this whole thing,'' Renaud said. ``They created the trend, and everyone looked at it and said, this looks fun, let's do it.''

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Photo: Kirk Perron, who runs a chain of juice bars known as Jamba Juice, wants to open 1,000 stores throughout the country in five years.

New York Times