Free the juice! Why we’re asking the UK juice industry to step up

At Eager we have always believed that great-tasting juice doesn’t need to be refrigerated until right before you drink it. Chilled is a serving suggestion, not a storage necessity.

The juice industry has led us to believe that fresh-tasting juice needs to be kept refrigerated or it’ll go off.
 
Which is just not true.

At Eager one simple difference has a huge impact – our cartons are fully airtight, which removes all the unnecessary refrigeration from our supply chain and cuts our carbon emissions by roughly 25%. There's no need to change the way we make our juice, or compromise its great taste or quality.

Now, we’re asking the other UK juice companies to free their juice from the fridge too.

Here’s why…

The ‘fresh juice’ myth

For years, ‘big juice’ companies have been refrigerating their juices in order to make them look fresher and healthier. But, unless it’s literally squeezed right in front of your eyes, you can’t call juice fresh. Truth is, your carton of ‘fresh, healthy’ fruit juice has been pressed, packed, pasteurised and (often) shipped from the other side of the world, only to be re-pasteurised, re-packed, stored in refrigerated warehouses and transported in refrigerated trucks to your supermarket. Great-tasting, yes, but fresh? Not really.

Why we have no chill over ‘chilled juice’

In our advanced, modern world, the need for refrigeration is growing. According to Forbes, the “global cold-chain industry will grow 17.9% a year by 2026”. The cooling industry creates 10% of all global CO2 emissions, that’s a massive three times the amount of the shipping and aviation industries combined.

We understand the need for fridges — we can’t live without them. But if we use them only when they’re really needed, we can save the planet tonnes of CO2. 

The Eager difference: Same taste, different carton.

All too often the way juice is packaged is a matter of keeping up appearances rather than taste or necessity. More than 99% of the juice available in the UK is pasteurised with a heat treatment, meaning that, with the right packaging, it can be stored without refrigeration and still taste just as delicious.

Our classic Eager flavours are made to deliver the best taste however they’re stored, from uncomplicated apple to exotic pomegranate and tangy grapefruit. The only difference is that our juices are packed in fully airtight containers (thank you SIG), that keep the juice tasting great, without the need for wasteful refrigeration along the supply chain.

This has cut our carbon emissions by roughly 25%. A small amount in planetary terms, but a big leap for a small juice company like us, and one that would be even bigger if the other juice companies followed our lead.

We’ve led. Now we want others to follow.

If all juice brands in the UK joined us and removed unnecessary refrigeration from their supply chains, we could save 800k tonnes of CO2 per year, that’s more than the annual output of 100,00 UK residents, roughly the population of Durham. 

We’re asking juice companies in the UK to ditch the fridges until we actually need them, which isn’t in a warehouse or the back of a truck, but just before we take our first delicious sip.

It’s a simple change that can make a big impact on the planet, but importantly, has no impact at all on the great taste of the juice we love to drink.

Juice will always have an impact, we can’t change that (other than stopping drinking juice altogether, and nobody wants that), but we can be honest about what juice is, and how we can make it better.

Here’s to juice freedom!