They’ve spent 25 years working together – and raising four children along the way – and the secret to Boost Juice founder Janine and Jeff Allis’ successful relationship is “never taking an issue to bed”.
“Working with your spouse has its challenges, Janine – who is back on screens in 2025 as a competitor on Australian Survivor: Australia v The World – told Travel Insider in 2015.
“There have been times when I’ve glared across the table at him. I could throttle him sometimes, but I always put myself in other people’s shoes, and I didn’t want a husband and wife bickering in meetings.
“We learned early that if we work on the same project, it often doesn’t end well, so now we have complete responsibility for our respective areas.”
Certainly, Janine has described her partnership with Jeff, whom she first met on a blind date at the Avalon Air Show, as “formidable”.
“Because Jeff doesn’t get into the details, he has more courage in the decision-making process,” Janine told Travel Insider. “He’s great under stress. My strength is that I’m high-detail. Often in life, if you get the right one plus one, it can equal 10.”
On his part, Jeff told the publication that his wife “will always have sleepless nights worrying about things, but failure doesn’t come into my vocabulary too often”.
“She stays with problems longer than I have the patience to,” he admitted. “We’re complete opposites, though we’ve started to morph – I’ve gotten nicer and she’s probably become a bit more robust in business.”
What does Jeff Allis do?
When the pair met, Janine was working as a publicist and Jeff was Head of Programming at Austereo Radio.
Within eight months, they were married, but it wasn’t until Janine was pregnant with her third child (her and Jeff’s second) that the couple decided they didn’t want to work for other people anymore.
They tried publishing, without success, and even gave touring international comedians a go, but the financial rewards weren’t there.
Then, on a trip to the US in 1999, the couple came across bars selling juices and smoothies, and it sparked an idea for something similar in Australia. Boost Juice’s first store launched in Adelaide, and within just four years, they had 100.
“I think one of the things that got Boost going was complete naivety,” Janine told 9Honey in 2024. “I had three little children at home and thought it would be great to have a job I could do a bit part-time and still raise my children.”
The reality ended up being very different – it wasn’t a part-time role at all.
“Jeff would sign these 20 store deals with Westfield and I’d have to work out a way of building them, funding them, franchising them, and just doing it,” Janine explained to QWeekend in April 2024.
The result was long hours and family challenges.
“My children would go out with one shoe or they wouldn’t wear the right uniform, and, you know, it was hectic,” the entrepreneur told the publication.
“There were times where I completely stuffed up, and I thought my mum was picking up the kids, and actually it was me, and they couldn’t get a hold of me because my phone went dead.
“But you know what, I look at the grown humans now and I think they’re okay. They’ve got good resilience and grit. I’ve given them resilience and grit. They survived.”
Indeed, the Shark Tank Australia star’s children are success stories in themselves. Her eldest, Samuel, 33, owns a bookshop cafe in NSW; Oliver, 28, is Brand Director of cult dessert chain Yo-Chi; Riley, 26, is a successful YouTube content creator, and Tahlia, 16, is acing it at school.
As for the big age gap between her kids, Janine told the I Don’t Know How She Does It podcast, that when she was 39 and on a business trip in South Korea, she booked her husband in for a vasectomy reversal when she felt the sudden want to have another child.
“I know it sounds a little bit weird, but that is how it felt, and by this stage my poor husband – I had sent him off to have a vasectomy,” she said.
“So he had a reversal, and that didn’t work, so it took three years before this gorgeous little girl came into our lives.”
Is Janine Allis still married?
And while the kids have gone on to keep challenging themselves, Janine and Jeff have too.
In 2007, the couple formed Retail Zoo, a holding company that expanded to include brands like Betty’s Burgers and Salsas Fresh Mex.
In 2010, the couple sold 70 per cent of their shares to US investors.
“The business has grown to a point where it has experts in all fields,” Janine told QWeekend.
“I’m definitely there to help and give advice and guidance and expertise and understand the DNA, but I also don’t want to be in the weeds anymore.”
Retail Zoo was later acquired by Bain Capital Private Equity, with Jeff (the Executive Chairman) and Janine (Executive Director) still “heavily invested in the business,” according to a statement.
As well as maintaining their joint business interests, the pair remain happily married.
In April 2025, Janine – a keen surfer – joined the board of directors of Surfing Australia, and she continues to be a keynote speaker and business mentor.
And then there’s her return to Australian Survivor – the franchise she completed 44 days in the wild with in 2019, and which earned her the nickname “The Godmother”.
The 2025 version was filmed across 16 days in Samoa and saw seven returning Aussies pitted against Survivor stars from across the globe.
“This was Survivor on steroids,” Janine, now 59, told the Tweed Coast Times in August 2025. “There was no easing in. It was just ready, set, go.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the savvy businesswoman brought her trademark detail-oriented approach to her stint on reality TV, too.
“I totally overprepared,” she said. “I even studied footage frame by frame to see what materials worked, how people froze. I packed merino wool, silk, anything that stayed warm when wet.”
In an interview on The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show, the following month, the entrepreneur then made the frank admission that Survivor had “saved” her marriage.
“It was those 44 days on an island without speaking to him and literally having nothing to do with each other. [It was] actually transformative for our relationship.”
“I have a really hot husband and you know, 30 years on, still dig him,” she added.
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