Juice is manufactured in a number of steps, including fruit sorting and washing, juice extraction, clarifying, pasteurisation, and packing. Juice is poured into containers, which are then cleaned, labelled, and sealed during packaging. The manufacturing procedure is done to produce high-calibre juice, safe to consume and has a long shelf life.
Introduction
Have you ever wondered about all the processes involved in making your fruit juice box? We all know now that fruit and vegetable juice contains all the nutrients the body needs. With high vitamin C and other nutrients, juice can slow down ageing, prevent arteriosclerosis, and boost your body's defence mechanisms.
Orange, pineapple, grape, apple, guava, and carrot juice are popular fruit and vegetable juices.
Let us first read about the history of packet juice.
Did you know?
India is the world's largest producer of mangoes, and mango juice is a popular beverage in the country. The Indian juice market is expected to grow due to increasing demand for healthy and convenient beverages.
Who Invented Juice?
The Middle East and Italy were the first regions to produce juice in the sixteenth century. Britain discovered the nutritive merits and health advantages of juice made from citrus in the 18th century.
A pasteurisation technique was created in 1869, allowing for extended juice preservation times.
This guide will help you better understand the primary fruit juice packaging process.
Importance of Pre-Storage for Fruits Before Juicing
Before fruits can be juiced, it is critical to let them ripen optimally. However, ripening does not always occur uniformly, and several factors can impact the process, including production, harvest, and transportation logistics.
Pre-storage techniques such as controlling temperature, humidity, and quantities of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ethylene can promote uniform ripening. These techniques, known as controlled or modified environment storage, can significantly increase fruit and vegetable storage life.
Now, let us first learn the techniques to balance the processing load for fruit juice manufacturing.
Also Read: What Are the Main Ingredients in Your Favourite Ketchup [Manufacturing Process Explained]
Techniques to Balance Processing Load for Juicing Fruits
Here are some techniques used in the fruit juice manufacturing process to balance load processing.
- The brief holding period for an increased processing flow.
- Freezing increases storage life.
- Just-in-time harvesting and quick transportation.
- Shady and well-ventilated storage.
In addition to pre-storage techniques, other methods can help balance the processing load for juicing fruits.
For example, some fruits may be held for a brief period of time to accommodate processing flow while preventing contamination and damage.
Freezing can also encourage cellular breakdown, making shipping and juicing easier. Just-in-time harvesting, cooler nighttime harvest operations, quick transportation, and shady, well-ventilated storage are additional techniques that can help delay deterioration for a few crucial hours.
While these techniques can be expensive, even a little effort can accumulate significant advantages.
Challenges in Handling and Storing Fruit
Some of the most common challenges faced in handling and storing food in the process of making fruit are:
- Delicate and hygienic transport packaging
- Incipient fermentation and high-temperature storage
- Importance of adhering to GAPs for safety and quality
Handling and storing fruit intended for juicing can present significant challenges, mainly due to the low value of the crop. Transport packaging needs to be both delicate and hygienic.
Incipient fermentation can occur if the lot is kept at a high temperature for more than a few hours or for a more extended delivery period.
It is crucial to adhere to good agricultural practices (GAPs) for safety and quality, as produce that does not meet these standards poses a risk to both safety and quality and may be banned from commerce.
Impact of Subpar Agricultural and Manufacturing Practices on the Juice Industry
Subpar agricultural and manufacturing practices can significantly impact the juice industry. Here are some of the ways they affect juice manufacturing.
- Risk to safety and quality of juice products
- Elimination by food safety legislation and quality requirements
- Alternative beverage options and a bad reputation for local fruit juices
Businesses using such practices may pose a risk to the safety and quality of their juice products and may be eliminated by food safety legislation and quality requirements.
Moreover, such practices can lead to alternative beverage options, such as imported juices, carbonated soft drinks, and other alcoholic beverages, becoming more popular.
Local fruit juices and all locally processed goods may acquire an unwarranted bad reputation for quality, as consumers may not make nuanced distinctions.
The Importance of Nuanced Distinctions in Consumer Choices
Here are some of the main reasons you need to make nuanced distinctions.
- The negative impact of having a poor reputation on the entire industry
- Need for consumer education and nuanced distinctions in product choices.
The fact that an entire industry may be "tarred with the same brush" due to the bad practices of a few highlights the importance of consumer education and nuanced distinctions in product choices.
Consumers need to be informed about the impact of agricultural and manufacturing practices on the safety and quality of juice products and the industry's overall reputation.
By making nuanced distinctions and choosing products that adhere to good agricultural practices, consumers can help support the juice industry and promote safe and high-quality products.
Selection of Fruit Raw Materials for Your Carton of Juice
A few criteria must be considered when selecting raw fruit materials for juice-making.
- Fruit raw materials should have a pleasant aroma, flavour, mild acidity, and stable colour. They exhibit these superb characteristics during processing and storage and show no observable negative alterations.
- Fruits should have a high juice extraction rate.
- The fruit should be fresh to maintain the quality and flavour of the juice box.
Also Read: Why Does Fruitcake Last So Long? [Manufacturing Process Explained]
Fruit Juice Extraction
The steps involved in fruit juice extraction are:
- The fruit is crushed to extract and increase the juice output.
- Heating or pectinase addition is the pretreatment method before crushing the fruits.
- Fruit extraction depends on its structure and juice content. Moreover, the type of tissue used and the desired quality also influence the extraction process.
- Most fruit juices can be extracted directly from the whole fruit, which can be crushed and pressed. Fruits with thick skins, such as citrus and pomegranates, must either remove the peel or extract the juice one at a time.
The efficiency of the juice, as well as the quality, variety, maturity, and freshness of the fruit and the season during which it is processed, affect fruit juice production.
Clarification Process of Fruit Juice
The clarification process of fruit juice involves removing any solid particles or impurities from the juice to make it clear and more visually appealing. The following steps are often included in the process:
- Pre-treatment: To remove any spoiled or damaged fruits, the fruits are cleaned, sorted, and examined.
- Extraction: Enzymatic or mechanical processes are used to extract the juice from the fruits.
- Screening: To get rid of any big particles like seeds, peels, and pulp, the juice is screened.
- Enzyme treatment: Pectin can be broken down in the juice by adding enzymes if necessary, which clarifies the juice.
- Clarification: The juice is clarified by settling, centrifugation, filtration, or a combination of these processes.
- Pasteurisation: The juice is heated to kill any potential microorganisms.
Fruit Pulp Preparation and Processing
- Raw materials are moved from the pre-production warehouse to the dosing units/sorting units.
- Sorting units distribute fruits to the lift's vertical screw feeder uniformly.
- Sorting units are designed to fit the capacities of the lift and floating chutes.
- Fruits are transferred to the inspection belt/roller table using a feeder resistant to acids and polymers.
- Trained staff inspect the raw materials and discard any that don't meet the standards.
- Sorted material is transferred to the mill. The mill has replaceable/movable components for adjusting to raw material quality and getting ideal pulp parameters.
- An automated system with visualisation controls the cutting line.
- Enzyme preparations are introduced to the pulp milling process using a membrane pump to increase efficiency.
- The fruit pulp is routed to a pipe heater if technologically justified.
- The B&P engineering pulp pipe heater heats the pulp to a predetermined temperature using hot water.
- The fruit pulp is pumped into pulp tanks for the subsequent phase of making juice and concentrates.
Adjustment and Mixing of Sugar and Acid in Fruit Juice
After the clarification process, the next step is to add sugar and acid for the right taste.
- Put the right amount of sugar and malic or citric acid into freshly squeezed juice.
- Calculation and modification of sugar degrees.
- Calculating and modifying acid content.
Concentration of Fruit Juice
Fruit juice concentration is the process of dehydrating juice to concentrate its flavours, sugars, and minerals. The concentration of fruit juice is done by various methods, which are as follows:
- Method of vacuum concentration: A vacuum lowers the juice's pressure and boiling point, enabling quicker evaporation and concentration.
- Method of freezing concentration: This technique allows for a more natural concentration procedure by freezing the juice's water content and separating the resulting ice from the concentrated liquid.
- Method of concentration using reverse osmosis: A highly concentrated liquid is produced by separating the juice from the water molecules using a semi-permeable membrane.
- Aromatics restoration: After concentration, adding aromatics can aid in regaining any lost flavour, resulting in a more flavorful and delicious juice.
Sterilisation and Packaging of Juice Containers
The sterilisation process aims to eliminate microorganisms and minimise any adverse effects on the quality of the product. The widely used procedure is where sterilisation is done with a high temperature and short duration.
1. Filling Process
Low-temperature filling is typically used in carbonated beverages. Except for paper containers, fruit drinks are almost entirely filled with hot filling.
2. Pasteurisation Process
Pressed juice that has not been clarified is sent from intermediate tanks to the evaporation station's pasteurisation and aroma recovery section.
The main goals of pasteurisation include obtaining juice microbiological stability, starch gelatinisation, and protein denaturation. The temperature of this process is between 95 and 105°C.
3. Dearomatisation Process
In the dearomatisation process, aromatic compounds evaporate simultaneously. You can get an aroma concentrate that is one to two hundredfold.
4. Automatic Control
The operator can continuously regulate pasteurised juice parameters thanks to automatic control and display.
5. Serpentinisation Process
B&P Engineering builds serpentinisation tanks with stirrer-equipped acid-proof tanks. Tanks' precise measurements ensure enzymatic preparations are dosed correctly as they pass through the station preparing fining agents.
Storage and Standardisation
After the packaging, the next step is to store the packaged fruit juices before reaching nearby shops and stores.
- The concentrate condensed in the evaporation station is cooled to about 5-8°C before being sent to the warehouse.
- Modern warehouses have full pipeline installations and controls that enable archiving information.
- The touch panel displays the operational state of the many systems and equipment in the space. This makes supervising and managing the system from a single location possible.
- Standardisation happens before the concentrate is transferred to storage tanks.
- Based on an intermediate tank sample, the laboratory examines the extraction, acidity, NTU, and colour.
- Through equalisation tanks, concentrates are distributed and sent out of the warehouse.
Quality Control of Juice Containers
A PLC monitors and regulates the operation of the filling machine during the sterilisation of the liquid and the filling of the juice boxes to guarantee that quality and safety criteria are met. An operator controls this controller from a console that satisfies all Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reporting standards.
The beverage's sterility, nutritional value, and flavour are never compromised. The drinking mechanisms are correctly attached.
Hundreds of manual and automatic quality checks are performed before, during, and after the sterilisation and filling processes to ensure that the temperature of the liquid and speed of the process remain in the proper range.
By-Products/Waste
Juice box recycling and waste reduction are required environmentally friendly methods in the beverage business. Juice boxes are a more environmentally friendly solution than standard beverage packaging because of their distinctive form and compact size.
Additionally, producing different paper goods and the circular economy can benefit from recycling used juice cartons through hydra pulping.
- Juice boxes and aseptic packaging have overcome early environmentalist scepticism by producing significantly less waste and energy than conventional beverage packaging techniques.
- Juice boxes conserve energy due to their small size and distinctive brick shape. These boxes use less energy to transport than bottles or cans. Aseptic packaging also consumes less energy because it doesn't need refrigeration while transported or stored.
- Optimal energy economy during aseptic filling is achieved by closely monitoring timing and temperature. This is to ensure product integrity while conserving energy.
- Recycling used juice cartons also contributes to trash reduction. Juice boxes are accepted as recyclables in curbside recycling programs. The paper is removed from the polyethene and ground into pulp through hydra pulping for various paper goods.
Conclusion
Sales of single-serve beverages like juice boxes grew at a record rate in the 1990s, and analysts predicted that this rise would persist into the 21st century.
The expansion of international operations by market leaders like Coca-Cola, Tropicana, and Pepsi-Cola, the ongoing adoption of new flavours and marketing strategies to appeal to broader market segments, and new distribution channels for the product, such as health clubs, are all factors that have contributed to this growth.
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