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Surely, it can't be equally difficult to obtain juice from different fruits, but surprisingly, they usually cost the same at the store. One exception may be cranberry juice, which is sometimes a little more expensive than the other juices of the same brand (for various reasons, I suppose).

Does the price become the same for most juices of a single brand because of store pricing policy? Do manufacturers set equal price for them? Or is it really almost equally as hard to make the different juices, so the price is basically the same?

user1306322
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  • There are so many regions, so many form factors, and so many brands I am not sure on what basis you can say that they all cost the same. – SAJ14SAJ Nov 19 '13 at 02:46
  • Compare ingredients. Juices you might expect to be more expensive are often actually blends (apple juice is a common juice to be mixed in). Other juices sometimes contain sugar water to "stretch" expensive juices. – Jolenealaska Nov 19 '13 at 02:56
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    Truthfully, this is more of an 'economics' question than a culinary question. The 'market price' for anything (yes, _anything_) is established by what the market _is willing_ to pay for that item. The cost to manufacture, package and distribute that item vs. market price determines if doing so 'is profitable'. – Cos Callis Nov 19 '13 at 12:08
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about economics, not about cooking or food-handling. – Mien Nov 19 '13 at 12:54
  • I just assumed it was because most of 'em were actually apple juice for the most part. ('100% juice' doesn't mean it's only juice from the fruit on the label). – Joe Nov 19 '13 at 16:32
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    I didn't say anything about 100%-ness of the juices. Just the trend of same price for all (or almost all) flavors/juices/mixes of the same brand. So It's also a question of how they are mixed or watered down to achieve the same cost, given that initially the juices don't cost the same. – user1306322 Nov 19 '13 at 18:36

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In retail stores everything is "priced" to what the targeted consumer will pay. There is little relevance to production cost to final price

The cost of most food goods is not for "growing", but the energy for fertilisers, tractors, picking, processing, storage, shipping etc. Your finally price is mostly the cost of energy used (directly or indirectly)

For fruit juice you are paying mostly for picking (fuel), processing (electricity for water pumping and cleaning, electricity to running machines), storage (electricity), and shipping (fuel)

Cranberry juice is significantly more expensive to grow and pick, so this does show as a different price

e.g. Apple Juice. Concentrate purchased at US$1,500 to US$2,000 per ton. Reconstituted 1:5 to 1:7. So one litre of apple juice costs US$0.21 at best case. Yet you buy it for US$2+ per litre!

TFD
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    There are some 'growing' costs, which has to do more about how much you get per acre. (and acerage has costs in terms of property taxes) – Joe Nov 19 '13 at 16:32
  • @Joe yes there are lots of other costs, but they are very small compared to the main energy costs. Also land costs are energy related. Land close to markets or shipping lanes is more expensive than land in the middle of nowhere – TFD Nov 19 '13 at 20:47