Expert: J. Peter Clark - 1/30/2008

Question
QUESTION: I am a Chemical Engg student and I am required to report on how a ready-to -drink fruit juice is made. can you help me and email me a step by step process (from picking up oranges to packing each bottle) of how to manufacture the tropicana juice drink by PepsiCo. (detailed as much as possible, please...)recommending a site where i can get all the steps will help much. thanks!

ANSWER: If you can find it, "The Orange Book" published by Tetra Pak has all the information you need. There are other references that may be in your library describing fruit juice manufacture. Briefly, oranges or other fruit are picked from trees when they are ripe - they should not be gathered from the ground. They are transported in trucks to a plant where they are washed, sorted by size, stored briefly until needed and then blended with other lots to standardize sugar, acid and color. Orange juice is extracted in  special machines that either work like a home juicer - fruit is cut in half and pressed against a rotating burr - or the fruit is penetrated by a porous tube and then squeezed by interlocking fingers to force juice through the tube. juice is forced through screens to remove seeds and "rag" - the membrane and then centrifuged to remove excess skin oil, which is bitter and worth money in  its own right. Single strength juice is pasteurized by heating to 80 - 95 C for 15 - 30 sec and either filled hot or cooled and filled aseptically. Pasteurized juice is distributed refrigerated.

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QUESTION: Thanks. How about the specific equipments used in every process? Are these "Pasteurized juices" the same as what they call the "concentrate" which are delivered to every plant of tropicana to be diluted and bottled?
Thanks..

Answer
Concentrate is made by evaporating most of the water in the juice. juice starts at about 14 % soluble solids and concentrate has about 80 % solids. Pasteurized juice is either "Not From Concentrate" (NFC) or made by diluting concentrate with water. The most common evaporator is a 7 effect falling film vacuum unit called TASTE, sold by FMC. Other pieces of equipment include paddle finishers, heat exchangers, pumps, centrifuges and tanks.