The man, the myth, the juice carton

We don't squeeze the truth, just the fruit

We believe that when it comes to juice, less is always more. Being honest about our juice, the way it tastes, looks, and how it’s packed and sold, has been part of our DNA since our founder, Ed, started providing high-quality juice to restaurateurs and the drinks trade in 2007.

Even back then, we were aware of the impact that drinking fruit juice had on ourselves and on the planet, and were quietly working towards making it better.

The ‘fresh juice’ myth

For years, in order to give the impression of both freshness and healthiness, juice companies have said their juice must be refrigerated. But in reality, no juice is actually fresh (unless it’s squeezed right in front of your eyes) — by the time you see it in the supermarket fridges your juice has already been squeezed, pasteurised and shipped from the warmer parts of the world, then pasteurised again, repackaged, stored in chilled warehouses and transported in refrigerated lorries to the supermarket.

Of course, juice will never be an ‘eco’ product, far from it — but it can be better. We know because we’ve already been doing it for years.

Why we’re not so chill about ‘chilled Juice’

The cooling industry accounts for around 10% of all global CO2 emissions, which is three times the amount of shipping and aviation industries combined. That’s a massive amount.

On top of this, the need for refrigeration is growing. According to Forbes, the “global cold-chain industry will grow 17.9% a year by 2026, reaching more than $585 billion, with Asia-Pacific accounting for the bulk of this growth”.

From rice farmers in India to greengrocers in Hackney, we all need to keep things cool. But as the need for refrigeration grows, so does the need to burn more fossil fuels in order to supply electricity for all those buzzing fridges and whirring air conditioners.

Fridges are necessary — we can’t live without them. But if we can cut down on their use when they’re not needed, we can save the planet from tonnes of CO2.

The Juice Carton

Really, the only thing you need to keep your juice tasting great is airtight packaging (thank you SIG — our perfect alternative to TetraPak thanks to its innovative and flexible cartons). Simple as that.

When it comes to juice, ‘chilled’ is only a serving suggestion, not a storage necessity. The ‘big juice’ giants know this but are still intentionally misleading, frequently putting image over impact.

Our great tasting, all-natural juices are, and always have been, packed in those handy airtight juice cartons — so we don’t waste energy on unnecessary refrigeration along the supply chain.

This reduces our CO2 emissions in our chain by a huge 25%, a small-step in planetary terms, but a big step for a small juice company like us. Plus, if all the other juice companies thought like us, and tried to make their juice better, more honest too — then we’d really be seeing a difference.

In fact, if these brands took a stance with us, and removed the unnecessary refrigeration from their supply chains too, it could save the UK 800 thousand tonnes of CO2 per year — which is the annual output of 100,000 adults. Roughly the population of Durham.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start

Our ethos is to embrace simple flavour, the uncomfortable truths, and be the unapologetically ordinary juice.

We can’t hide the fact that the juice we know and love will never be low-impact, environmentally speaking. Those apples and oranges have earnt their flying badges.

We would never claim to be saving the planet, but simply because of the way our Eager juice is packaged, we know we’ve made it ever-so-slightly better.

Like Ed’s been unmasking since the noughties, when it comes to juice, less really is more.