The adulteration of fruit juices is widespread. As with any commodity, juice manufacturer, blenders and users can secure considerable financial benefit from adulterating fruit juice. It should be emphasized that food safety issues are not normally an issue in fruit juice adulteration. The issue simply the fact that traders and consumers are being defrauded: an adulterated fruit juice as pure fruit juice is not as it has been labeled.
Although adulteration is becoming increasingly sophisticated, it is normally seen as falling into one of three types:
- Overdilution of juices with water
- Use cheaper solid ingredients
- Blending of cheaper with more expensive juices
The issue of too much water being added to juices has largely been addressed through the application of a minimum solids content. Many countries now have in place a minimum Brix value for various juices. These minima are backed either by legal statue or industry code of practice. They normally apply to juices prepared by adding water to concentrate and not to ‘not from concentrate’ products.The second category of adulteration is by far the most common. For examples, apple juice will normally contain around 11% by weight of solids. At least 90% of these solids are carbohydrates – sucrose, dextrose and fruits predominating. Considerably cheaper sources of carbohydrate can be found and the simple addition of a mixture of carbohydrate in roughly the same proportion as those found naturally in apple juice can be used to ‘stretch’ apple juice by a considerable proportion.
In the third category a cheaper juice can be used to adulterate a more expensive one; for example, elderberry juice can b used to extend strawberry or raspberry juice.
Adulteration of Fruit Juice
