Juice in China made with poor-quality or rotten fruit
September 24, 2013 Leave a comment
Juice in China made with poor-quality or rotten fruit
Staff Reporter
2013-09-24
As living standards improve in China and the public becomes increasingly health-conscious, the consumption healthy beverages and fruit juice in particular has become an established trend. Juice, however, is not as healthy as many may think, according to Guangzhou’s 21st Century Business Herald. Several major domestic fruit juice producers, such as Haisheng Juice, Huiyuan Juice and Yantai North Andre Juice, are located in proximity to major fruit farms, including in Dangshan in east China’s Anhui province and Pingyi in Shandong province. These companies are thus able to obtain cheaply a large volume of overripe or even rotting fruit for their juices or fruit that fell to the ground before ripening, the paper said.Paying a visit to factories owned by Haisheng Juice and Huiyuan Juice, a reporter found trucks laden with rotten fruit queuing up to enter the factories through the rear entrance. The reporter said he could smell the odor of rotting fruit meters away from the trucks.
Using low-quality fruit allows companies to cut costs and make a considerable profit from the end product. A Dangshan fruit farmer surnamed Chen, who also owns a fruit shop, said that 20-30 tonnes of rotten fruit are shipped to nearby juice factories every day and the volume is sometimes as high as 60 tonnes per day.
An official at Huiyuan Juice denied the allegation and told the paper that some damage to the fruit during delivery is inevitable and noted that the company examines the purchased fruit to ensure that standards are being met.
Government figures show that the total production of beverages nationwide was 1.3 trillion tonnes last year, growing by 10.73% from the previous year. Meanwhile, the production of juice and vegetable beverages was recorded at 22.29 million tonnes, which accounted for 17.16% of the total beverage market, up 16.09% year-on-year.
Following a series of scandals prompting nationwide concern about food safety, consumers in China have begun to question the ingredients used in juices packaged for sale. A nutritionist said that many juice brands contain a large amount of sugar and many of them have food additives including sweeteners, sour agents, color fixatives and preservatives. The public must also be aware that juice claiming to be 100% pure is not really liquid squeezed directly from the fruit but rather a dilution of concentrated fruit juice, the nutritionist added.
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