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Nowhere in the world is as much fruit juice drunk as in Germany. We drink an impressive 33 liters per capita per year! Orange juice is our most popular juice. Each of us drinks 7.4 liters per capita per year! What should you look out for when buying orange juice? Eco-checker Katharina Röben finds out! 00:00 Fruit juice in check 01:33 Quality check: concentrate vs. direct juice 04:38 Working conditions in juice production 08:02 What you should look out for when buying juice 09:10 Which juice has the best ecological balance? 13:08 Conclusion CONCENTRATE - REALLY AS BAD AS ITS REPUTATION? Over half of the orange juice produced worldwide comes from Brazil. This means that the juice has to travel a good 11,000 kilometers to reach us. When we buy the whole fruit, it usually comes from Spain. A much shorter route. Sandra Dusch Silva is a food consultant for the Christian Romero Initiative. From her, eco-checker Katharina learns that there are no major differences in nutritional values between direct juice and juice from concentrate. Direct juice is, as the name suggests, directly pressed, pasteurized juice. With concentrate, however, the fruit is pressed in the country of origin and the water is then removed from the juice. This causes the volume to shrink to 1/6. What remains is the pure aroma, i.e. concentrate, which is then filled up with water here in Germany, for example. Pasteurization takes place in both direct juice and juice from concentrate. Although the ingredients hardly differ, direct juice often scores highly in blind tastings. OVEN JUICE: SLAVE-LIKE WORKING CONDITIONS A huge problem with orange juice is the catastrophic working conditions in Brazil, says Barbara Schimmelpfennig. The workers do not receive their wages or receive them far too late. This traps them in financial dependency. Very few have appropriate protective clothing. This is a big problem because Brazil uses massive amounts of pesticides, some of which are already banned in Europe. Not only are these pesticides harmful to people, they also lead to bee deaths and contaminate nearby waterways. As the EU has much stricter guidelines, orange juice from Europe would be preferable. However, there is not a lot of this on the market. WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN BUYING The most important thing is to pay attention to fair trade, says Sandra Dusch Silva. Alongside Fair Trade and GEPA, Rainforest Alliance is another seal, which is at least a partial improvement on conventional farming. And, as always, organic farming can be recognized by the organic seal. Manufacturers who belong to the “Partnership for Sustainable Orange Juice,” or PANAO for short, are also recommended. There is no seal, however, but manufacturers do provide information about their membership of the alliance on their websites. Members undertake to actively promote social justice and labor rights, as well as environmental and occupational safety. Another option is crowdfarming, where you can, for example, raise money for organic produce. For example, you can adopt an orange tree and get what the tree produces. However, you then have to press the juice yourself. DIRECT JUICE, CONCENTRATE OR FRESHLY PRESSED: WHICH IS BEST? Andreas Detzel, Managing Director of the ifeu Institute in Heidelberg, knows this answer. In a direct comparison of concentrate and direct juice, concentrate performs only slightly better. Because, although a lot of space and weight is saved during transport compared to direct juice, it has to be frozen using additional energy and then reprocessed in the destination country. This worsens the balance again and both products end up with a very similar ecological balance. The oranges from Spain, which we usually use for our freshly pressed juice, are not really more climate-friendly either. They travel thousands of kilometers in trucks. Orange juice can and should continue to have its place on our breakfast table. But it has a much greater environmental impact than local juices and it is therefore always advisable to drink in moderation. Authors: Julia Müller, Karolina Luttig, Christoph Eggener Editing: Christoph Eggener Editor (solisTV): Sarah Weihsweiler Editor (SWR): Inga Vennemann, Holger Conzelmann SOURCES: ► Crowdfarming, online at: https://bit.ly/3a85NOS ► Squeezed. Behind the scenes of the orange juice industry (2015). Online at: https://bit.ly/3mWMGwF ► Subscribe to Ökochecker on the Marktcheck channel https://bit.ly/Marktcheck ► Instagram @oekochecker: / oekochecker ► Ökochecker is produced by SWR https://www.swr.de/impressum ► Comments are welcome – but please observe our netiquette: http://www.swr.de/netiquette #Ökochecker #Orangejuice #Sustainability