Fruit Juice

This guide only covers 100% pure juice. Many of the companies in this guide also make vegetable juice and smoothies but we focus on the ethics of fruit juice here.

Juice drinks have sugars, sweeteners, preservatives, flavourings or colourings added to fruit juice. They are covered in the Soft Drinks guide. The market is dominated by the two big US soft drinks megaliths – PepsiCo and Coca-Cola – neither of which make a Fairtrade or organic variety.

Happily, there are some smaller, more ethical alternatives, although Fairtrade brands are thin on the ground.

What is fruit juice?

Fruit juice is usually described as:

• From concentrate – Juice is extracted from the fruit and the water content is reduced in the country of origin. The concentrated juice is usually frozen and shipped to the country of use for packing. Fruit juice packers then reconstitute the juice by adding back the water.
   
• Not from concentrate – Juice is extracted from the fruit in the country of origin and then lightly pasteurised and frozen or chilled and transported to the country where it will be packed.
   
• Freshly squeezed – Juice is extracted from the fruit and used immediately.‘Not from concentrate’ is often thought of being a better-quality juice than ‘from concentrate’ but there is no difference in them nutritionally, and they have both been pasteurised.

Chilled and freshly squeezed juices are more expensive, but although they may have the edge on flavour, nutritionally they are the same as long-life juices.

Fairtrade and organic fruit juice

Brazil is the world’s top exporter of orange juice, growing 60% of the world’s juice oranges. And orange juice is the bestselling juice in the UK (followed by apple, pineapple and grapefruit).

Oxfam published an investigation into conditions on tropical fruit farms in North East Brazil in October 2019. It found widespread and systemic poverty among seasonal workers, particularly women, on sites which supply supermarkets in Europe. Plus, the report also uncovered farms with poor working conditions and inadequate protection against exposure to pesticides.

These sorts of conditions are likely to be widespread in other countries growing tropical fruits like pineapples.
 

There aren't many Fairtrade fruit juices

Unfortunately, there are very few widely available Fairtrade certified juices – only Calypso (orange juice and apple juice) and Co-op (orange juice) are in this guide.

The company behind Fruit Hit, top of the table and the only Fairtrade Best Buy in our last guide in 2017, is unfortunately no longer in business. The company also owned the alternative Fairtrade cola brand Ubuntu too.

One option to safeguard workers’ rights may therefore be to avoid tropical juices but then again, as economist Joan Robinson argued:

“the only thing worse than being exploited by global capital is not being exploited by global capital”

Organic fruit juice

Choosing organic is another option which protects the environment, the growers who have to apply the pesticides and the consumer who may consume them.

There are more of these in the shops – Luscombe (all juice is organic), Biona (all juice is organic), Pip Organic (all juice is organic), James White, Suma, Rocks, Waitrose Duchy Organic, Sainsbury’s SO Organic, and Tesco.

If you can’t always buy organic, a recent survey by Pesticides Action Network of the pesticide residues on fruit and veg sold in the UK helps you prioritise. Here are the stats for fruits commonly used in juices:

To avoid these, make sure you buy organic versions of juices with these fruits in. All the companies listed above make organic apple juice.

Additionally, Biona makes organic grape juice and blueberry juice, James White does organic pear, Pip Organic does apple & strawberry and Luscombe does organic apple & pear. If your favourite is grapefruit, you’re out of luck.

What is a greener juice?

• Eating whole fruit, which cuts out some of these impacts, especially UK-grown fruit which cuts down on transportation or food miles.
   
• If you do buy juice, go for long-life which doesn’t need refrigerating. Tesco reported that their freshly squeezed orange juice had about twice the carbon footprint of its long-life variety.
   
• Juices labelled as ‘from concentrate’ cut down on transportation impacts. Those sold as concentrates rather than having their water added back in are even better – Suma and Rocks both make organic versions.
   
• Choose juice made from UK-grown fruit like apples or pears. They are unlikely to have been kept in cold storage before they have been made into juice.
  
  You’ll need to make sure it says English or British apple juice on it though. You can’t assume that apple juice comes from UK-grown apples.
  
  We import 80% of our apples. For example, China is the world’s biggest grower of apples, followed by the USA. Calypso’s Fairtrade apple juice comes from South Africa.
   
• Organic British apple juice – Luscombe, Waitrose Duchy.
   
• Non-organic British apple juice – James White, Waitrose. Alternatively, a local supplier may be best for UK-grown fruit juice. Check out farmers markets, local box schemes and small independent food retailers.

Alternatives to buying juice

Many of the issues in this guide can be addressed or avoided by taking a number of alternative courses:

• Eat whole fruit and veg instead.
   
• Make your own juice from locally grown, organic, whole fruit – still better than a fizzy soft drink because of all their other ingredients like sweeteners, artificial colouring and preservatives.

Plus, it’s pretty simple and cuts out all the carbon and resource issues.

What companies are doing about their carbon emissions

Our new ‘Carbon reporting and management’ rating in the Climate Change column looks at what companies are saying and doing about reducing their carbon emissions.

All of the companies in this guide get a worst rating bar four – AG Barr and Sainsbury’s, which get a middle rating and M&S and PepsiCo, which are top the pile with a best rating.This means that most companies failed to even talk about what they were doing to cut emissions.

AG Barr only missed the mark by not talking about scope 3 emissions (emissions from suppliers). Sainsbury’s did talk about these, but as a petrol retailer it fell short of a best rating.

M&S and PepsiCo reported all their emissions and had targets to cut them by 2.5% or more per year, in line with international agreements.

Price Comparison 

We have compared the prices of our organic or Fairtrade Best Buy and Recommended brands to the bestselling brand of apple juice, PepsiCo’s Copella which is neither Fairtrade or organic.
 

Fruit juice and sugar

Pure fruit juices are exempt from paying the sugar tax as their sugar is not ‘added’ during production. However, they can contain equally high levels of sugar.

For example, a 150 ml glass of Tropicana orange juice (the bestselling brand in the UK) has 12.6g of sugar whilst 150 ml of Coca-Cola has 15.9g – not vastly different. Put another way, a glass of Tropicana has the same sugar as three and a half Hob Nob biscuits.

Diabetes UK says that “half a pint (or half a carton) of fruit juice contains more sugar then the WHO recommends having in a whole day (30 g sugar for 11years to adult, 24 g for 7 to 10-year olds). And this is easily the amount that someone might drink in a day.

How to manage sugar intake The sugar in fruit juice still contributes to obesity, Type 2 diabetes and tooth decay because it is a ‘free sugar’ in liquid form which is rapidly absorbed by the body.

Whole fruit, on the other hand, is considered to be much better for health because, although it contains just as much sugar, the fibre slows down its absorption. The skin and pulp of whole fruit also contains other nutrients not present in just the juice. And fruit juice is a more concentrated source of sugars than whole fruit – 12 g of sugar in a medium orange but 21g in a glass (250 ml) of orange juice.

If you do want to drink juice, it is recommended that you only have 150 ml a day which currently also counts as one of your 5-a-day. But juice can only ever count as one portion a day, no matter how much you drink. The British Dental Association has this advice:

• Always drink juice with meals and never before bedtime.
   
• Choose 100% fruit juices with no added sugar.
   
• Pick apple or berry juice over citrus, which is worse for teeth and more likely to erode enamel than other juices.
   
• Fruit juice softens tooth enamel, which protects teeth from decay, so wait one hour after drinking before brushing your teeth. This will give the enamel time to harden.
   
• Avoid flavoured water, as it also contains lots of sugar.
   
• Never drink juice from the bottle, or give juice to small children in bottles, as this bathes the teeth in juice and increases the chances of damage.
   
• Drink fruit juice heavily diluted with water.
   
• Vegetable juice often has less sugar than fruit juice – i.e. tomato juice is 3% sugar whereas orange juice typically has around 8%. But watch out for added salt.

Environmentally friendly packaging

For information on fruit juice packaging, look to our guide on environmentally friendly drinks packaging.