Fruit Juice Testing

Fruit Juice Market

Fruit juice is available in a wide variety ranging from citrus to tropical fruits. Since these products provide good nutritional value, they are preferred by a large majority of the population. With increased number of consumers globally following the trend of healthier lifestyles the demand for fruit juice has increased tremendously. Majority of the population is opting for natural juice and avoiding aerated drinks that showcase high sugar content. Verifying consumers are getting quality product has become ever more important.

Illegal practices used in fruit juice production span a wide variety of techniques and are ever growing. Some more predominant practices include addition of sugar syrup or dry sugar to concentrate fruit juice, fruit sipping into sugar syrups, and dehydration.

EIMPyro® is the ONLY peripheral that can uncover all of the above mentioned practices.

Fruit Sipping

Most common way of fruit juice adulteration is fruit sipping. This is called “the new osmotic drying technology”, as osmosis is carried out. Fruit, based on the difference in osmotic pressure, releases juice into sugar syrup. At the end of the process “candied fruit”, which is referred to as “osmotically dried fruit”, is produced and also a “concentrated fruit juice” which is actually a sugar syrup with flavoring and fruit color.

Fruit Juice Dehydration

What is presented as a freshly squeezed natural fruit juice is very often a fruit juice made from concentrate. Producers dehydrate fruit juice in order to combat challenges related to fruit spoilage during transportation. Once the dehydrated fruit juice (concentrate) arrives at the local packing facility it is diluted with water and reconstituted fruit juice is placed on the market and represented as a freshly squeezed fruit juice.

Addition of Sugar to Fruit Juice

Producers add sugar syrup or dry sugar to concentrated fruit juice in order to increase the percentage of dry matter. This is an illegal pratcite and in actuality, the problem is much more significant. The evaporation process is accelerated by addition of sugar when concentrating fruit juice, which is associated with lower energy consumption and shortening the concentration process. Such concentrate is difficult to distinguish whether the product has added sugars or if its origin is from fruit only.