Apple juice and grapejuice are commonly sold at room temperature in vacuum sealed containers. Orange juice is commonly sold in the refrigerator section, as is milk.
Is this due to a difference in the physical nature of the drinks, the way they’re produced, the way they’re consumed, or what?
[I believe lemonade and fruit punch are commonly sold both ways.]
Price and quality. Vacuum packed is much cheaper, but the quality is lower. The orange industry managed to convince America that fresh orange juice was a necessity on the breakfast table, so high quality, refrigerated OJ sells.
There are also differences in how different juices change when pasteurized and stored over time.
yeah, this. Costco used to sell 2-packs of jugs of orange juice which were unrefrigerated.
There are aseptically sealed, sterilized, room-temperature packs of milk, but the sterilization process gives the milk a different taste (some call it “burnt.”) Flavoring milk (e.g., chocolate milk) helps mask the taste, which is why that’s pretty much the only way you see it in the U.S.
Ultra-Pasteurized Milk seems to be quite common now (crazy long shelf life). Here in the states, it is sold in the coldcase but the last time I was in Germany it was shelved at room temperature in Tetra Brik packaging.
No need to refrigerate until opening, I guess it is like eggs in the US vs Europe - cultural, not scientific norms.
I remember when orange juice was sold in cans on the shelf, not refrigerated. Don’t remember how it tasted though.
Yeah, refrigerated orange juice is not much of a thing in continental Europe. Most of it is sold on the shelf, unchilled, in glass or plastic bottles or in Tetra Paks. The supermarket I shop is pretty big, but its selection of chilled juices (not just orange juice) is limited to a tiny refrigerator. But the variety of unrefrigerated juice on offer is far greater than what I’ve seen in any American supermarket.
Long before (1940s) there was frozen or refrigerated fresh orange juice, my mother regularly bought orange juice and grapefruit juice in 48-oz tins. They were my first exposure to those juices, and I thought that was what they were supposed to taste like. You probably still can, look for it near the big apple juice tins.
Having once been the marketing manager at a juice company:
The general rule is that juices and beverages that are stored / sold at room temperature are pasteurized, so long term storage is not a problem.
Since juice is mostly water, plants near the groves concentrate it to a syrup like product, ship it to local facilities where its re-consituited (appropriate levels of water are added back) and pasteurized and immediately bottled. The plant where I worked bottled the juice at just below boiling. That’s what creates the “vacuum” seal; as the juice cools, it contracts slightly and that creates a slight vacuum at the top.
“Not from concentrated” juice is not heated or heated only minimally, meaning bacteria can still be an issue, so to increase shelf life they’re kept cold throughout the entire supply chain. This is also one of the reasons they’re more expensive - the entire supply chain needs to be refrigerated.
I’m not an expert in milk, but because milk is different their pasteurization reduces bacteria instead killing (almost) all. It definitely doesn’t heat the product up to near boiling as juice pasteurization does. As others noted, that level of boiling changes the taste of milk, which is one reason why.
That said, not all refrigerated “juices” need to be refrigerated. Manufacturers know that people perceive refrigerated as higher quality, so they pay retailers to be in that cooler.
One great example of this is “Sunny Delight”. It’s water, sugar and very little real juice. I’m not sure if it’s still found there, but when P&G owned it, they paid big bucks to retailers to be in the refrigerated juice section. A lot of people accused P&G of deceptive marketing, justifiably so IMHO. It looked like juice, tasted some what like juice was sold next to juice and was half the price.
This thread brought a flash back childhood memory of donald duck canned orange juice. I remember it as being sour, and watery. Much worse than the orange juiced mixed from frozen concentrate that I was used to.
UHT is even higher heat, for a shorter time. It’s the kind that’s sold in unrefrigerated briks all over Europe.
OJ is pretty much the only one I see refrigerated (most of it an American brand), but yeah the same supermarkets that have half a dozen boxes of refrigerated OJ have a whole linear or alley of unrefrigerated juices.
The whole “fresh” orange juice situation is a bit of a scam anyway. Dirty Little Secret: Orange Juice Is Artificially Flavored to Taste Like Oranges
Thats an interesting link. Maybe the business or laws have changed since I was involved (about 10 years ago in Canada), but I’ve never heard of that happening either with my company or any of the big competitors like Minute maid and Tropicana.
Our juice “flavour profile” was determined by the blend of orange types we used. We had suppliers in Florida who purchased oranges from around the world and would blend them to our agreed-to specifications and ship them to Canada. We allowed some variability to the blend depending on oranges prices, but it still fit into our flavour target.
In fact, we had situations where we’d get a call saying “We have a chance to buy XXX tons of Turkish oranges real cheap, we’ve dome some blends to match your flavour profile”. They’d send the blends and we’d do blind taste tests in the office and say go or no-go.
I was also responsible for product development and two food scientists worked for me, never once did that type of flavour enhancement of a pure juice product even come up. We absolutely used flavour enhancers, but never in a product called “pure juice” of any kind.
As far as I know, that was not allowed then, even if the flavouring is “natural”. If you claim something is “pure XXX” then nothing but XXX can be in the product. Although perhaps things have changed or maybe the big guys have found a way round the law.