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. I 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 avoid aerated drinks that showcase high sugar content. Verifying consumers are getting quality product they expect have become ever more important.

Illegal practices used in fruit juice production span 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

Problem related to the production of freshly squeezed natural fruit juice is dehydration. This is especially present in the production of fruit juice produced from citrus fruits. To combat challenges related to fruit spoilage during transport concentration is carried out. These concentrates are diluted with water at the location of local packers and reconstituted fruit juice is placed on the market represented as freshly squeezed fruit juice.

Addition of Sugar to Fruit Juice

Addition of sugar syrup or dry sugar to concentrate fruit juice in order to increase the percentage of dry matter. In actuality the problem is much more significant. Evaporation process is accelerated by addition of sugar when concentrating fruit juice, which is associated with lower energy consumption and a shortening the concentration process. Such concentrate is then difficult to detect as illegal practice, whether it has added sugars or if its origin is only from fruit.