Juice makers given marketing warning

The Juice and Beverage Association lobby says only juices which are not made up from concentrate can be labelled "pure".

But the association plans to allow drinks reconstituted from concentrate to be promoted as "100 per cent juice from concentrate" even where flavours and vitamin C have been added in the process.

The association said today it would also allow manufacturers to label as "natural" fruit juices which did not contain food additives.

Only those which did not contain any additive, flavours, or reconstituted juice, and had not been pasteurised, or frozen will be allowed to be labelled "fresh".

The announcement of an industry "juice glossary" follows some bitter in-fighting in the industry over whether manufacturers adding water to concentrates could claim their juice was "pure".

The association sought clarification of food regulations in the wake of one manufacturer, Charlie's, promoting its orange juice as the only one available that is "100 per cent pure", in a tetra carton, because all the others had concentrate in them.

The Charlie's company was formed by Marc Ellis and orange juice pioneer Stefan Lepionka, and claimed publicly that consumers were being misinformed when "100 per cent" was wrongly used. They alleged that the association was prepared to ignore its own rules on labelling.

According to Mr Lepionka, an "alarming number" of association members have been trading in breach of Commerce Commission fair trading guidelines which state: "Squeezed should only be used for not-from-concentrate juices".

Mr Lepionka argued the guidelines said "pure" and "100 per cent" should only describe products containing only one ingredient with nothing added.

Association executive director Bronwen Bartley said today that the new definitions would "limit confusion among industry players" and take into account often complex and contradictory rules and regulations.

"We know consumers want all sorts of things from their juices including taste, value for money and quality so we hope the guidelines will help them understand what the differences are between products," she said.

According to retail industry magazine, Grocers' Review, lengthy debate took place in the industry over the words "100 per cent juice" and "pure juice".

The magazine reported that the aim was to use the terms in a way "so that not even the dumbest of consumers will remain confused".

The magazine also reported a member of the association's technical committee, Jackie Dobbs, as saying that in 12 months it had "moved ahead substantially in terms of cleaning up the industry and these guidelines are a start to get a code of practice sorted for the industry".

JUICE INDUSTRY'S NEW GLOSSARY:

* Concentrate: Fruit juice that has been concentrated by removing some of the water content.

* Reconstituted: Fruit juice prepared by adding water to concentrate.

* Not-from-concentrate (NFC): This juice does not have any water removed or added back. It may be pasteurised.

* Fresh: Does not contain any additives, flavours or juices that have undergone a concentration process. Fresh juices must not have been pasteurised, stored frozen or contain frozen juice, and have a short shelf-life.

* Pure: Not from concentrate. Juices that contain no additives but could be a combination of fruit juices.

* 100 per cent: Means the same way as "pure" for not-from-concentrate juices. If reconstituted from concentrate the label will say "100 per cent juice from concentrate" or "100 per cent reconstituted fruit juice" (in this case flavours and vitamin C may be added to replace those lost in the concentration process).

* Natural: Does not contain food additives (unless they are natural components) or have any part removed or changed.

* Organic: These juices are prepared from fruit grown without the use of chemicals and not derived from genetically engineered crops.

- NZPA