Demystifying the juice world: What does not from concentrate mean?

If you’ve ever found yourself puzzled by the labels on your favourite fruit juice, you’re not alone. To help combat this, we’re launching a series of blogs that aim to demystify the world of juice, and take the buzzwords back to basics.

At Eager, we believe in being honest about juice. While the majority of our classic juices are not from concentrate, we do use both methods to ensure we have the very best taste. So it’s even more important that we bust some of that confusing juice industry jargon, and make the cloudy world of juice a little clearer.

So what is the difference between not from concentrate and from concentrate? And is one better than the other?

What is not from concentrate juice?

Not from concentrate is fruit that's been squished and then pasteurised to remove any pathogens from the juice and make it safe to drink. Pasteurisation heats the juice quickly to kill any germs. Not from concentrate juice is then packaged and transported with all its original water content, natural sugars and nutrients.

So, what makes a juice “from concentrate”?

Concentrated juice is also squished and pasteurised fruit, but then it is passed through a filter to remove its water content at the source. The result is an intensified syrup that is easier to transport. The filtration process does remove some of the fruit’s natural vitamins, fiber and antioxidants.

When concentrated juice arrives at its destination, water is added back into the juice. Occasionally more nefarious ingredients are also added to the mix at this stage to make it tasty again. Some juice brands (not Eager!) add sugars such as corn syrup or dextrose to create an extra-sweet flavour.

To concentrate, or not to concentrate?

From concentrate juice is much cheaper to produce, which is why many brands do it. But the sacrifice is flavour — hence all the additives that are sometimes added back in. Our motto is: the less processed, the better!

At Eager, we make our juices as tasty as possible with as little processing as possible. Our hero juices, OJ, apple and pineapple, alongside pink grapefruit and tomato, are all proudly not-from-concentrate. We have two flavours that are concentrated, but it’s for one simple reason — taste. Both our cranberry and pomegranate juices would be very bitter or unusually flavoured if we left them alone, so we give them a helping hand by adding some sugar and water.

Eager is just great juice

The big juice industry is full of misleading ‘health’ messages, labels and dazzling packaging. But that’s not how we do things here. At Eager, we’re honest about our juice, where it comes from, how it’s packaged and transported, and its nutritional content. We’ll never make claims we can’t back up, and we’ll never add anything to it that it doesn’t need.

Eager juice is a delicious treat. Enjoy in glasses half-full.