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‘Only bright spot’: Australian industry calls for rethink on juice Health Star Ratings stance as consumer loyalty grows By Gary Scattergood The Australian beverages industry has expressed hopes that the government will reconsider its current stance on Health Star Ratings (HSR) for no added sugar juices after the sector emerged as the sole soft drinks growth category in the last quarter of 2020.
According to a new report by analysis consultancy GlobalData, the Australian beverage industry as a whole suffered a 4.2% year-on-year drop overall in Q4 2020 with just about all beverage categories showing declines.
Soft drinks in particular saw a significant y-o-y decline of 7.2%, the largest amongst all beverages – with the sole exception of juice, which showed moderate growth of 1.6%.
A decision by the Australian and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has seen orange juice go from a five-star designation under the Health.
The fact that they promote highly-processed products ahead of fresh produce is something that we cannot understand
Peak fruit industry bodies encourage their growers not to use Health Star Ratings after baffling changes to juice calculator
Australia s peak apple and pear industry body is calling on growers and juice producers to strongly consider removing the Health Star Rating from their labels, following a decision to give fresh fruit and vegetable juice a lower health star rating than diet cola.
The Australian and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation voted to adopt changes to the Health Star Rating (HSR) calculator, effectively giving 100 per cent fresh fruit juice a 2.5-star rating, while sugar-free diet soft drinks receive 3.5 stars. APAL and Citrus Australia have lobbied for amendments that would recognise the many other nutritional benefits that fresh juice provides.
New orange juice rating lines up with the science, but the stars don t align for some
ABC Business 15/02/2021 By Alex Treloar, Jane McNaughton and Sam Bradbrook
A decision to rate 100 per cent orange juice as less healthy than diet cola has prompted fierce debate among parents, dieticians and juice industry representatives about why the change was needed.
For one parent, Becky Noordink, a mother of three young boys in Western Australia s Great Southern region, the new rating is confusing and potentially misleading.
No stars from mum If you look at the ingredients in a soda drink versus a pure [100 per cent] fruit juice, there are so many manmade chemicals versus a fruit juice that s come off a tree, she said.
New orange juice rating lines up with the science, but the stars don t align for some
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Nippy s says it would be poor management not to peel the HSR stickers off.
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A decision to rate 100 per cent orange juice as less healthy than diet cola has prompted fierce debate among parents, dieticians and juice industry representatives about why the change was needed.
A glass of OJ or a piece of fruit?
Fruit is changed when it is pulverised into juice and is no longer equivalent to whole fresh fruit
Natural sugars in juice (mostly fructose with some sucrose) are absorbed more quickly into the bloodstream than those in whole fruit