squeezing the purse

Health Articles

Squeezing the Purse

Richard J B Willis

BUC Health Ministries Director

How much are you willing to pay for fruit juice? A reasonable amount I am sure, but not as much as some retail outlets are charging. A major survey on the quantity of fruit juice sold in cartons and bottles shows that you could be paying up to £34.67 per litre!

Consumer organisations have measured the percentage of real fruit juice in a variety of drinks and then worked out how much it would cost at the rate on offer to purchase a litre of the juice.

The costs are as follows for juice drinks: Cape Tropical £2.63; Tesco Tropical £2.73; Rubicon Sun Exotic Tropical £3.16; Pure Heaven £3.19; ASDA Extra Special (Orange/Lime/Lemon) £4.80; Del Monte Burst Tropical £5.07; Suncrest Tropical £5.56; Princes Refreshingly Tropical £6.27; Sunpride Tropical £6.90; and Consumers Pride Exotic Tropical £12.50!

Children’s juice drinks start just below mid-range of the above figures then climb dramatically!: Disney Winnie the Pooh £3.53; Thomas and Friends (Apple/Blackcurrant) £6.60; ASDA More for Kids (Apple/Pear) £9.20; Tesco Kids (Orange/Peach) £9.56; Florida Style Sunny D £10.27; Tom and Jerry (Apple/Blackcurrant) £12.50; Robinsons Fruit Shoot (Orange/Peach) £22.60; Twist ‘n’ Squeeze (Orange) £25.00; Ribena Blackcurrant £34.67, and its no kinder to the teeth for the price!

Squashes also come in for the same analysis and cost per litre estimates: Princes Geebee £4.00; Tesco (Orange/Lemon/Pineapple) £4.46; Pataya (Apple/Blackcurrant) £4.50; Morrisons (Apple/Blackcurrant £5.90; Sainsbury’s Mixed Fruits £6.20; Kwik Save (Orange) £6.30; Budgens Whole Orange £6.50; Londis (Apple/Blackcurrant) £6.90; Kia Ora Mixed Fruit £7.79; Noddy Smooth (orange) £9.90!

The pure juice blends work out at better value for money with the following brands claiming 100 per cent of juice: Sainsbury’s low price long life (orange) 38p Sainsbury’s Pure Tropical 75p; ASDA Multivitamin Tropical 88p; Waitrose (Orange/Passionfruit) £1.09; Fruit Passion Fair Trade £1.49; Tesco Pressed (Apple/Mango) £1.79; Marks and Spencer Pressed (Pineapple/Peach/Passion Fruit) £1.99; Santal Exotic £2.35; Liquifruit Breakfast Punch £2.49; and Tropicana Tropics (Orange/Pineapple/Mango) £2.69.

Apart from the pure juices the juices that we buy are concoctions of water, sugar, and a dash of the named fruit juice varying between 10 and 40 per cent of the volume. For the children’s juices the percentage of fruit juice ranges from 5 to 55 per cent of the end product.

With bottles of wine costing less than these fruit mixtures it is no surprise that people choose wine as the healthy drinking option. The Consumer Organisations doing the survey say watch out for words like ‘refreshing’ on the label as this often denotes lots of water! If you want to water down juice it is cheaper to do it yourself. Clearly the purse is being squeezed more than the fruit.