Juice industry trends: natural processing and reduced sugar content
GEA Hall A3 – Booth 373
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a rise in demand for vitamin-rich, immune-boosting vegetable and fruit juices that is set to last for years to come. Experts predict that the market’s annual growth potential in the years leading up to 2026 will be around five per cent. Reason enough for Gra to showcase two juice industry innovations that respond to the trends in minimal processing and low-sugar products.
The Gea Better Juice Sugar Converter Skid solution naturally reduces juice’s sugar content by up to 80 per cent, without affecting its nutritional value or authentic taste. Israeli start-up Better Juice invented the biological process, while Gea designed and built the pilot-scale process technology. Since July 2022, beverage producers can implement product testing with the bioreactor skid at Gea’s test center in Ahaus, Germany.
Booth space at Drinktec will also be dedicated to the Gea vaculiq 100 juicer, which processes fruit and vegetables to create virtually unadulterated, high-demand drinks. The mobile system is a great choice for small to medium-sized beverage and food producers who want the finished juice to be almost indistinguishable from the fresh raw ingredients. Tests prove that juices produced using the patented process via a vacuum spiral filter retain the raw fruits’ vitamins and phenols to a significant degree, a quality that other juicing technologies cannot achieve. In this way, both the primary and the valuable secondary plant components are preserved. At Drinktec, Gea will present the complete system consisting of the vacuum juicer Gea vaculiq and the powerful Gea multiCrush mill, which crushes the raw material and feeds the mash into the juicer in a short time.
