30 Nov “Healthy” is trending
Healthy Eating Is More Popular Than Ever
Gonzalo Iceta, Juan Uribe, and Íñigo Iceta are the founders of the well-established restaurant chain Healthy Poke—a new fast-food paradigm with a healthy twist.
How and when did the Healthy Poke journey begin?
In 2018, Íñigo, after suffering an injury, realized how important nutrition was for athletes and noticed there were no complete, high-quality, tasty, and affordable options in the market. While living in Miami, he also “discovered” poke bowls and their massive growth—and that’s when we decided to launch the project.
What’s your philosophy?
The customer comes first, and we need to truly understand them to deliver the best experience. Doing things with passion, thinking creatively, and having a strong team is the key to making Healthy Poke the great project it is today. Our time at Lanzadera, Juan Roig’s startup accelerator, helped us structure the business in a scalable and profitable way.
How do you stand out from the competition to reach success?
The best choice for us was not to franchise—this gives us more control over our operations, growth strategy, service, and product quality. We moved away from the “Hawaiian” concept and focused on the “Healthy” side instead.
Ingredient quality and respect for the product are sacred to us. Our poke bowls are made with fresh, unprocessed ingredients—the raw materials must be better than excellent. Plus, we offer a broader menu that goes beyond just poke, designed for different moments, always healthy, without sacrificing taste or appeal.
What makes your locations special?
We aim to be where our customers are. We’re flexible and multi-format, with street-level restaurants, delivery and take-away spots, kiosks, food trucks, and locations in GO fit sports centers.
From fast food to fast good. How has your evolution been?
Like many entrepreneurs, we started with an idea and a lot of passion—but limited capital. In a short time, we’ve been able to grow and improve every part of the business, from operations to location formats, always aiming for the best customer experience.
We began 2021 with 10 locations and reached 24 in 6 cities, making us one of the largest poke operators in Spain and one of the biggest in Europe with our own locations. Our goal was to close 2021 with at least 30 locations (some international) and keep growing.
Poke is thriving in delivery format—how have your sales been with this model?
From the start, we saw huge potential in delivery channels. We understood that a restaurant could massively multiply its sales, and the number of seats or the physical size of a location was no longer a limiting factor.
Without realizing it, we were prepared for what 2020 would bring. However, our biggest growth came in 2021—in the first half alone, we surpassed all 2020 sales, and by year’s end, we expected to triple them.