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Well, that’s what I always use to say to people: "You have got to check out the Boost bars in Aus – they are to die for." I’ve oft lamented the fact that back here in the UK we don’t seem to have anything that quite matches up. Sure, there are fruit juice and shakes bars, but somehow they never really seem to have that extra special something that I remember from when we used to have them in Aus.

But this weekend something wonderful happened – while taking a walk through a shopping centre in Oxford Manda spotted a familiar looking logo: "It’s a Boost bar!" I had to do a double take, but yep, there it was, no copycat affair, this was the real thing!

It turns out that the outlet had opened just over a week ago and is only the second to open in the UK (the first being in Manchester). The guy on the counter gave us all the sales spiel (including one particularly cheesy line about some people considering it the ‘eighth wonder of the world’) but I cut him a bit short by explaining that he didn’t need to sell to us – we were already well and truly sold on the concept! He added that ultimately they want it to be as big as Starbucks. Sounds a bit pie in the sky at first, but when you consider that the brand started in 2000 in Aus and has had phenomenal growth since then – "the fastest-growing juice business in the Southern Hemisphere" – that may not be all that unlikely. The guy who’s brought it to the UK is Richard O’Sullivan (no, not the actor), and he can thank his daughter for the tip-off:

It was his daughter who came across Boost Juice on her gap year in Australia. She phoned home to tell O’Sullivan, “Dad: you could do this.” He got straight on a plane to judge Boost for himself. “It stopped me in my tracks. It was an explosion of flavour, tasted great, and you just knew it was good for you.” O’Sullivan, 44, now believes the UK juice bar market is ripe for an Aussie invasion.

And the thing is, I can remember thinking exactly the same thing: "This is such a great business opportunity, why aren’t there any in the UK?". It’s just a shame I wasn’t able to phone up a fabulously wealthy entrepreneurial father to come out to see what I was on about, as it looks like I’ll have to shell out the full price for a Strawberry Squeeze from here on in. But I’m happy to do that :-)

So, I can remove that ‘you must do this if you’re in Aus’ from my list, or at least I will be able to once they’ve established more of a foothold in the UK. Perhaps I should be sending people to Manchester or Oxford instead?

Read more about Boost in this article in the Independant