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The following is written on a packet of Juice by a renowned company: 

ingredients: water,  red grape juice concentrate 24.7 % * 
*reconstituted 100% grape juice

1- What is the meaning of reconstituted (100%) grape juice?

2- What is the meaning of juice concentrate 24.7%? Does that mean it is having only 24.7% original juice and rest added water?

3- How much diluted is this juice

Kindly help me understand.

Update:

My main concern is: are they cheating me because they call it 100% Juice?

gpuguy
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    Your update seems already to have been addressed: unless there are local laws permitting essentially lying on packaging, all they've done is take out water and put some back in. – Cascabel Jul 07 '12 at 12:40
  • It's cheaper to ship juices in a concentrated form. so they either send the raw juice through a cyclone dryer: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cyclone+dryer+foods&t=ffsb&iax=images&ia=images or lyophillize, pull vacuum, to get rid of most of the water. – Wayfaring Stranger Apr 29 '19 at 23:41

1 Answers1

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What they mean is that they took some grape juice and concentrated it by evaporating some of the water contained in it (a concentrate is juice in which the sugar content is increased at least of 50%).

This is good for producers because concentrated juice has a lower volume, is easier/cheaper to stock/transport etc. When they bottle the juice, they then reconstitute it by re-adding the water to the concentrated juice.

24.7% means they originally removed 75.3% of the water to make the concentrate. Because they added it back, at the end you are back with reconstituted 100% juice.

EDIT: fruit juices are regulated by the Codex general standard for fruit juices and nectars (PDF) which lists the minimum Brix Level (=sugar content) for various juices. Reconstituted juices must oblige to these minimum standards, although local laws may vary.

nico
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  • What is 24.7% here, when they are saying reconstituted 100% grape juice? – gpuguy Jul 06 '12 at 16:08
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    24.7% means they originally removed 75.3% of the water to make the concentrate. Because they added it back, at the end you are back with 100% reconstituted juice. – nico Jul 06 '12 at 16:14
  • Is it clear from the ingeredients that it has has no extra water added to it (apart from reconsituted)? (means is it really not diluted) – gpuguy Jul 06 '12 at 16:14
  • @gpuguy: I guess that could actually be legislation dependent: they may have added more water than they removed from the concentrate. Not sure if they are allowed to do that. – nico Jul 06 '12 at 16:15
  • @gpuguy: I edited my answer with an interesting link – nico Jul 06 '12 at 16:37
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    The idea is very definitely that it was concentrated to 24.7% of the volume then reconstituted to the original volume; that's what the "reconstituted 100%" means. I don't know if laws anywhere allow for shenanigans, but at the very least it'd be misleading labeling if they aren't doing what the packaging says. – Cascabel Jul 07 '12 at 00:34
  • @Jefromi: I would also imagine that is the case. Probably the thing would be different if instead of saying *reconstituted 100% juice* it said *100% reconstituted juice* (in the sense: we did not add anything else apart from water). Again, I would bet local legislation comes into play for things like these. – nico Jul 07 '12 at 07:55
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    @nico, since it's exactly what the OP is asking, you should edit your answer and add what you explained in the comments about what the 24.7% and 100% reconstituted means. – Jay Jul 07 '12 at 08:28
  • @Jay: added, although my doubts on the exact boundaries of the law still stand. – nico Jul 07 '12 at 09:59