BIS MAGAZINE/BIS Food and Drink News.../Orange vs. Apple...The Battle of the Fruit Juices

It´s Orange V Apple in the Battle of the Fruit Juices ….

Orange juice's slice of the fruit juice market has gone down for six years running, while apple juice has been on the increase. And Asda now says it's no longer selling Sunny D. Is the sun setting on OJ? Asks the bbc.co.uk

If you asked for fruit juice a few years ago, everyone would have assumed you meant orange juice. It was the default juice drink. It had been since the 1970s, when it was sold as sunshine in a glass, a slice of the Californian dream in a British suburban fridge.
But jump forward to the present - and you'll find that the consumer has changed and that orange juice, the symbol of healthy living and Mediterranean holidays, is no longer sufficient to satisfy our thirsts.

Fruit juice sales from 1999 to 2004, show that in each consecutive year the market share for orange juice fell - and that apple juice and other blended juices increased.
The figures are not broken down into age groups - but there are anecdotal suggestions that children are leading the move towards apple juice. Parents might prefer to use apple juice, rather than orange, as a dilutable drink for young children, says senior market analyst, Paul Tarling.
And anyone going to a children's party, will soon see the prevalence of apple juice.
Orange juice still remains the biggest juice drink, representing 69% of sales. But the new century has seen a steady decline in dominance, down from 77% in 1999.
And if OJ is beginning to seem a little old fashioned, that might be because it's been around for a long time.

In Britain, the association between orange juice and a healthy lifestyle goes back to wartime and post-war rationing years, says Elizabeth Dowler, an expert in public health at Warwick University.
Reconstituted orange juice was provided for young children during the war - and in peace time "welfare orange juice" continued to be distributed in an attempt to improve nutrition.
This baby-boom generation, in the United States and the UK, has grown up alongside the orange juice market.
In the 1950s the use of pasteurisation and waxed cartons, meant that fresh, chilled juice could reach a much wider market across the country, and be tucked neatly into the fridge door as a household essential.

This was a drink which symbolised good living, swimming pools and leisure - images of post-war American confidence and affluence. And by the mid-1960s, Tropicana was selling its orange juice in Europe, with France the initial market.
In Britain, emerging to a mass-market in the 1970s, orange juice was strongly connected with something exotic and sun-tanned. It was part of a "continental breakfast" or a Californian beach lifestyle - advertised with images of healthy, outdoor families.
The orange juice on offer went through its own stages of evolution, via frozen concentrate, through a syrupy drink in a jar, to cartons of fresh juice and into the current range of just-pressed varieties.

And for the last three decades of the century it had a relentlessly positive image - associated with sunshine holidays, vitality and youth. In the 1980s, it was attractive enough to be the name of a pop group.
As the market share of orange juice has fallen, apple juice has risen. Whether it's fashion or flavour, it has become a much more conspicuous drink. The market share for apple juice alone has risen by 40% in six years to 14%.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the volume of unconcentrated apple juice sales has risen from 129m litres in 2001 to 176m litres in 2004. In the same period, unconcentrated orange juice sales have shifted only slightly upwards, from 556m to 563m.

Fresh-pressed apple juice, once the preserve of health-food specialists, is now appearing in pubs. Last month Britvic announced that it was selling a new pressed apple juice drink to the licensing trade, responding to the demand from customers.
And orange juice producers can point to the fact that even though market share is falling, it's part of a market that is continuing to expand, driven by continued interest in healthy living and a widening range of choices which his of course a good thing…
And despite this small decline, we may yet see the rise of orange juice again! 

 

Camel Chocolate!

Low fat camel's milk chocolate is due to hit shelves after an Austrian chocolate maker joined forces with an Arabic camel farm to produce camel based chocolates!
Vienna-based Chocolatier Hochleitner has developed the sweet treats reports ananova.com

Company head Johann Georg Hochleitner said: "We have come so far and what was once thought of as a crazy idea has become a huge project, particularly in the Arabic world where there is a potential market of about 200 million people."

He added: "Powdered camel milk is sent from Abu Dhabi to Austria where we produce the raw chocolate and then send it back for processing to a factory in the middle of the desert."
According to Hochleitner camel's milk is a good alternative to cow's milk because it is lower in fat and sweeter.

The chocolate, which is to hit the Arabic market this autumn, is called Al Nassma, after the cool wind which blows in the desert.
And the chocolate is expected to be introduced to the EU market after its launch in Abu Dhabi in the autumn…. So watch this space!

 

The Art of … Meat!

Feeling peckish? Well this Belgium artist must have been when he came up with his latest work of art … an exhibition made out of steak, mince and bacon.

Jan Fabre's Temples of Meat exhibition will only be on display for three days - until it goes off, reports ananova.com
The exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art in Ghent, includes a coat made of steaks and a tent of bacon with sleeping bags of steak. Hmm, you´d smell lovely in the morning after sleeping in that little lot!
Fabre said: "Meat is a very erotic material. A lot of my work is about the cult of decay and death.
"I also loved to create something that will be destroyed after three days. It's a lesson in modesty for every artist who confesses his love for eternity."

Fabre said he worked through the night with his assistants to turn 100kg of steak, 15kg of minced meat and a few kilometers of Parma bacon into art.
It's not the first time he has worked with meat. In 2000, he covered the columns of the university aula in Ghent with pieces of bacon.

 

How about a weekend in a relaxing .....Beer Spa?

The world's first beer health centre has opened in the cellar of a family brewery in the Czech Republic.
Beer baths, beer massages and beer cosmetics are on offer at the spa at the Chodovar Family brewery in Chodova Plana reports ananova.com

The converted cellars include seven huge Victorian style baths where guests can swim in beer while enjoying a pint poured at a bath side bar.
Guests on £80 weekend packages can indulge in a range of health treatments including beer wraps, starting at £12 per session.

Owner Jiri Plevka said: "Beer can treat a range of conditions, particularly skin conditions, and the health centre should appeal to men who are put off by 'posh' traditional spas.
"I have heard of some places in other countries where people can swim in beer but it's just a gimmick.
"We believe in the healing properties of beer and we offer the full range of treatments. We are a fully-fledged beer spa."

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