How often do people, when buying juice in a store, pay attention to the inscription “reconstituted”? And who thought at least once about what, in fact, it was restored from? And in general – what are juices made of, the consumption of which is increasing every year, because many have made it a rule to drink a certain amount of juice per day, considering this a sign of a healthy lifestyle?

There are so many questions that in most cases can be answered with only one answer – concentrated juice. It is from it (in most cases – in 90%) that all types of juices that we see in retail are made.

What does concentrated mean?
Let’s make a reservation right away – they don’t drink or eat concentrated juice, because this product is not for “direct consumption”. This is a blank in order to “restore” juice from it later. This is a concentrate of vegetables or fruits, which is obtained by evaporating excess liquid from freshly squeezed juice. How does this happen? During the harvest, berries, fruits or vegetables enter the factory, where they are washed, cleaned, crushed and juice is squeezed out of them under pressure. This is the freshly squeezed one.

Further, this workpiece is evaporated to about half the volume, and the result is a concentrate – a thick and viscous consistency. Of course, this is a primitive description of the concentrated juice production process, but why do we need technological tricks when everything is clear anyway.

Production features

However, a juice factory is not a home kitchen where everything boils in pots. The fact is that the concentrate is evaporated at low pressure, which helps to preserve vitamins and microelements, which are so rich in all juices. And one more nuance – during the boil, a lot of essential oils evaporate, which do not go anywhere under factory conditions. They are caught by special traps and then added to the same juice to give it flavor. These substances are scientifically called “aromatic”.

Then for a short time – less than a minute – the concentrated juice is brought to a temperature of 92 C to prevent microbiological spoilage – that is, simply fermentation. Then the juice waits either for clarification with the help of special filters, or it remains cloudy – it depends on its subsequent purpose.

After that, the concentrated juice is waiting to be transferred to special tanks, where it is stored until transportation around the world – to where it will already be made into reconstituted juices or nectars. All containers for storage and transportation of juice have aseptic properties. Sometimes the juices are mixed together to create interesting flavor combinations for the enjoyment of consumers. Moreover, in one tank there may be an apple from China and a carrot from Israel, as well as pears from Turkey. Truly an international juice!

What vegetables and fruits are suitable?
Now it’s time to talk about what vegetables and fruits are suitable for concentrated juice and where do you get them? A strange question – of course, where they grow. Moreover, producers of concentrated juices know where the sweetest apples and the most tart cherries grow, as well as other characteristics of fruits and vegetables. Now we will know about it. For example, oranges for the most delicious orange juice are brought from Brazil and China. Sour apples grow in Russia, sweet apples are supplied by China, tomato juice concentrate by Turkey and Iran, red berry concentrate by Germany, and America supplies us with concentrates from multifruits and exotic fruits. Yes, these countries supply juice factories with fruit concentrates, because making concentrated juice where fruits grow is much more profitable than transporting tons of them to the factory. Moreover, the factories are closely monitoring in which countries a good harvest of certain fruits has been born in order to purchase high-quality semi-finished products for their production there.

Manufacturers receive juice concentrate frozen or hermetically sealed, and only then make reconstituted juice from it. The whole process takes place in closed pipes and containers, huge tanks and on a conveyor, where the concentrates are diluted with water, enriched with additional additives, pasteurized and poured into packaging.

To get an even bigger picture of where we get concentrated juice from, here are a few more countries: Thailand supplies pineapple concentrate, Cuba supplies orange, India supplies mango concentrate, Israel and Argentina supply lemon juice, Ecuador supplies banana puree, South Africa, Uzbekistan and Chile – apricot puree, Ecuador – passion fruit concentrate.

Concentrated juice is an exchange commodity and many of the major juice producers buy it from large wholesale warehouses in Rotterdam. Right there in huge warehouses produce blending (mixing of different types) and blending (mixing in certain proportions) of concentrates, and they are brought to standard quality indicators.

Other manufacturers prefer to buy juice concentrates directly – where they are made. At the same time, the best concentrated juice is selected at the best prices, because any factory is interested in high-quality raw materials.

Types of product received
Here we come to a very interesting question: why are the prices for juices so different? Because the quality of the concentrated juice from which they are produced varies.

Specialists divide concentrated juice into three categories:

juice of the first pressing is the best, it is called “premium”;
juice with the presence of pulp is called “standard”;
pulp with little juice present is called “pulp wash”.
In the vast majority of cases, reconstituted juice is made from a concentrate of the second category.

The benefits of concentrated juice
It is already clear that the usefulness of the juice that we buy in the store directly depends on how many useful substances are contained in the concentrated juice. Without going into details, we will refer to the words of the employees of one of the laboratories that works at the juice factory. They claim that all juices are very useful, because the finished mixture, which contains vitamins and trace elements, is additionally added to the concentrate. And the heating of the mass for its pasteurization occurs very quickly. So vitamins do not have time to collapse.

As for such delicate vitamin C, which is destroyed even with slight heating, a solution has also been found here: acerola cherry concentrate is added to the juice. Why is it good? Vitamin C, contained in the cherry of this variety, is not destroyed even with prolonged heating. But not everything is so rosy, and when diluting and further working with the concentrate, some of the antioxidants and pectins disappear, so it would be wrong to say that the concentrated juice contains all the properties of fresh fruits.

Reconstituted or freshly squeezed?

Immediately there is a comparison of reconstituted juice from concentrated with freshly squeezed, not in favor of the first. Experts give a clear answer to this: if you just squeezed the juice and drank it, then this is the most healthy drink. However, do you know how long did this apple or orange lie in the warehouse, how long did it travel to you by sea or by land?

After all, apples begin to lose useful properties already 3 months after harvesting, oranges – after six months. In addition, freshly squeezed juices are made according to a technology that involves the collection of unripe fruits. Then they are ripened by processing with special substances, and then the juice is squeezed out of them. So it is needless to say that this juice is healthier than reconstituted juice from concentrate.