I bought some Golden Circle fruit juice drink in a 1L pack stating it was at least 73% Australian ingredients - great!; I am supporting the local fruit growers! Then I figured out later it was 25% juice and 75% water, so the 73% is actually at least 73% Australian water! How pointless is country of origin labelling if companies can get away with adding Australian water to make it look like it has a substantial amount of home-grown ingredients?
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There is a lot in a name so buyer beware. You bought fruit juice drink, not fruit juice. For better or worse they are two very different things. Fruit juice is juice (which may or may not have added sugar, salt, permitted added nutrients and additives ). Fruit juice drink is a drink that contains fruit juice or pulp or purée and has added water and may have sugars or permitted added nutrients and additives. In other words, the fruit juice drink is juice plus water plus additives. Under the Country of Origin Food Labelling the water used to reconstitute a juice concentrate is treated as having the same origin as the juice concentrate. Orange juice made from imported reconstituted orange juice concentrate should be labelled as packed in Australia from imported ingredients. An orange juice fruit drink might only be about 25% juice ( imported orange juice concentrate and the reconstituting water that is deemed to be imported). Under Country of Origin labelling where water is added as an ingredient, as opposed to reconstituting one, that water is treated as having had the origin of where it was collected. So if your fruit juice drink was packed in Australia, yes, the water will be considered to be an Australian ingredient. When I look at the prices of Australian juice it is a lot more expensive- hopefully the growers get a fair price, but price should give you some clue about what you are really buying.
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HI Laurel, exactly the issue with the current Country of Origin labelling, for the those who are not wary. The rules should exclude added water (and probably sugar). Australian customers are interested in supporting growers, not someone who turns on a water tap or adds a sack of sugar in the factory. Under a revised rule this 25% fruit juice drink may then say something like not less than 5% Australian ingredients, packed in Australia, rather than not less than 73% Australian ingredients, packed in Australia. A change to the rules to avoid misleading less-informed consumers must be for the better.
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It is something to be aware. @Laurel128 is correct in the post above and water used to reconstitute a food product (e.g. a juice) in Australia is treated differently to that when water is an ingredient in addition to other ingredients (e.g. a fruit flavoured drink).
Water is special as it can be sold as water, a water based product (esp. drinks), used to reconstitute products or within ingredients added to make a product.
The ACCC website has full information about labeling requirements:
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Water can be found listed as “aqua” on some very special products such as perfumes. It’s a very special chemical (not just plain ordinary water) sourced in the Swiss alps from special springs😜 and this helps to justify the outrageous prices being charged for these products which are mass produced in chemical factories.
Concerning “Golden Circle” drinks. I used to buy these based on supporting Aussie products, but when I bought some GC fruit juice recently, it seemed to me that it had been watered down considerably. This may be a way of cost cutting / increasing profits, but it lost me as a customer.
It seems to me that some well known companies know that people will continue buying their products because of trust in their long standing name - even when the company is taken over by another multi national corporation and there is an obvious decline in the quality of their products along with a price increase.
To witt:
Papa Giuseppe (taken over by Nestle)
Arnotts (taken over by Nabisco)
BB
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I’ve seen a worse one, the product is lemon juice made from concentrate, but the 90% water is added overseas and then shipped here to be packed in Australia! What a waste of resources when we could have added the water here.
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