Fruit juice from concentrate is made from mostly fresh fruit. Fruit concentrate is produced from filtering the water out of fruit pulp. The concentrate product is stored under aseptic, non-aseptic and frozen conditions. These methods have been historically used to optimize its transportation across the world, to then be re-constituted with the same volume of water that was evaporated from it, once it reaches the location of juice manufacture. Juice from concentrate is popular because fruit concentrate is easier and cheaper to store and transport than liquid juice.
So contrary to popular assumption, fruit from concentrate is real fruit juice. But the negative of this manufacturing process is that vitamins and minerals can be lost in the water that is filtered out.
The thing that makes not from concentrate (NFC) juice different from concentrate juice is the absence of the dehydration and therefore rehydration (sometimes called ‘reconstitution’) process. NFC is juice squeezed from the fruit with only inedible parts such as seeds and peel, and sometimes pulp, removed to obtain a 100% pure and natural squeezed juice. Like FC juice, NFC is routinely pasteurised. Pasteurisation allows consumers to buy a fruit juice product with a long shelf life and safe for human consumption. For unpasteurised juice you need to look to freshly squeezed or pressed.
