As of: January 26, 2024, 8:34 a.m
By: Daniel Schinzig
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Öko-Test examined 19 orange juice products.
Brand or discounter - which drink performs better?
Hamm - Many people are told early on that they shouldn't always just drink lemonade or other soft drinks.
Instead, you should give good old orange juice a chance more often.
Not only does it taste good, but it is full of valuable vitamin C, as advertising often emphasizes.
There's no real chance of avoiding the all-time favorite among fruit juices anyway.
Hardly a champagne reception, menu or cocktail without the liquid vitamin dispenser.
Öko-Test has now taken a look at orange-flavored juices and put them through their paces.
But the result is not that easy to interpret.
If you want to know exactly how well the 19 products in the test report perform, you should not only look at the overall grade, but also consider other aspects.
Orange juice in the test: A product must be taken off the market
But first the problem child of the Öko-Test editorial team gets its stage: Once again the discounter Norma is at the bottom of the tested products.
The company recently attracted attention with frozen fries that contained harmful substances.
Now the Bio Sonne organic juice orange made from orange juice concentrate from Norma is the only juice in the test to receive the grade “unsatisfactory”.
The double “organic” in the name doesn’t help either: the experts demonstrated a lack of rearomatization.
This is the process in which flavorings that were previously removed from the juice concentrate are added back.
“Something obviously went wrong in this process and the juice simply does not meet the requirements of the Fruit Juice and Soft Drinks Ordinance,” explains the Öko-Test editorial team in the report.
Norma has already reacted to this result and withdrawn the affected batch from the market.
According to the provider, checking a subsequent batch would not have revealed any abnormalities.
But even with the other juices, not everything that looked orange was orange gold.
This is the score of the orange juice test:
Very good: 1 juice
Good: 7 juices
Satisfactory: 6 juices
Sufficient: 2 juices
Deficient: 2 juices
Insufficient: 1 juice
This is certainly not a top result, but it makes a solid impression at first glance.
With the Fairglobe Way To Go orange juice made from orange juice concentrate from Lidl, one product has even achieved the top rating.
The majority of the juices are in the good to satisfactory range.
And the saying goes: “sufficient” is passed, passed is good, good is almost very good.
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Orange juice in the test: The quality is usually right, but the working conditions are not
So all in all a test result in which the majority of orange juices can be recommended?
Well, Öko-Test has incorporated very different aspects into its calculations and is presenting the results to readers in detail as usual.
And this is where interesting aspects emerge.
Only four of the juices in the “sensory” sub-category achieved the grade “very good”.
They are the only juices in the test that are certified to taste like freshly squeezed.
Exactly these four juices only received a “satisfactory” overall grade because they were weak in other categories.
The proverbial jack of all trades among orange juices was not to be found among the products tested.
Because in the end, even the “very good” orange juice from Lidl doesn’t taste like it’s freshly squeezed.
Straight juice vs. concentrate
Almost everyone knows the terms.
But what exactly is behind it when you buy straight juice?
How is it different from fruit concentrate juice?
Öko-Test also has an answer to this question: “To produce orange juice concentrate, the juice is heated strongly until the water evaporates and a sticky paste is left,” says the magazine’s statement.
The frozen concentrate is delivered around the world by ship, and water and flavors are then added again in bottling plants.
Direct juices, on the other hand, end up in the bottle unchanged and therefore undiluted.
The juice is simply heated to make the product last longer.
Overall, the quality of most products is good.
No real dangers or harmful substances could be proven.
Even the “insufficient” product is not harmful to health.
What many companies still have to work on, according to Öko-Test, is fair pay for workers on the plantations.
Because that was also a criterion of the experts.
And here there was room for improvement in almost every product when it comes to securing the livelihoods of the workers.
For the majority of the margarines tested by Öko-Test, not everything is perfect either.
Many products failed, only one margarine was convincing.