The investment is the culmination of two years’ research into cold pressed HPP fruit and vegetable juices by farmer Philip Maddocks
Maddocks launched eight juices under the B.fresh brand online and in independent outlets in November last year. He has revealed that he plans to launch the brand in Booths in April and is pursuing deals with other supermarkets.
He claims to be the first salad grower in the UK to develop such juices and has created 15 jobs as a result.
The juices are made using a cold press and HPP system, which produces a product as close to raw juice as possible, while providing a longer shelf-life.
High pressure chamber
The fruit and vegetables used in the juices are washed in the Shropshire farm’s natural spring water before being processed, mixed, bottled and placed into a high pressure chamber.
Once in the chamber, cold water is pumped around the filled bottles before they are subjected to three minutes of 6,000 bars of high pressure – equivalent to five times the pressure of the deepest ocean.
HPP inactivates the vegetative micro-organisms such as bacteria, yeasts and moulds, while maintaining colours, textures, flavours and nutrients which can be damaged by heat treatment.
This increases the shelf-life of the juices while avoiding additives.
‘Hard core’
The initial eight juice range was created to provide an offering for everyone from sweet to “hard core”, with “a lot in between”, Maddocks told FoodManufacture.co.uk.
The sweetest flavour contains 75% apple juice, 15% spinach, 8% kale and 2% lemon and has 100 calories.
While the hard core flavour contains 30% celery, 30% cucumber, 15% romaine, 15% spinach, 5% kale, 2.5% ginger and 2.5% lemon and has only 28 calories.
The range would be extended to 14 products by the end of this year, he added.
US juice firms sued for ‘raw’ labelling
Meanwhile, a maker of HPP-processed juices in the US is being sued for potentially misleading consumers by labelling them as ‘raw’, according to reports.
Genuine raw juices had to be consumed within days, compared to HPP-processed juices which had a shelf-life of 30 days, critics claimed.
However, a lawyer for the defence argued consumers would understand ‘raw’ to mean unheated.
The case against the US juice producer Suja began in February last year and still continues.