A Review of Different Common Fraud Cases in Fruit Juice Production and Methods of Detecting Them

Fruit juice is one of the most popular fruit products and is consumed by a wide range of individuals in societies in almost every age group. Some producers, however, perpetrate fraud in the production procedure due to economic and financial purposes. Thus, authenticity as well as quality have always been a major concern of consumers and officials in charge of setting regulations. Being aware of the frequent fraud in terms of fruit juice and being able to detect it are essential to differentiate between the unadulterated and adulterated product with more efficacy, which could be significant with regard to swift and accurate detection process and eventually the health of the consumer. This article aims to review the studies conducted on different common fraud cases in fruit juice production and methods of detecting them. Chromatographic techniques such as high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography are the most common methods for determining the purity of juices. Among novel methods of detecting fruit juice fraud cases are stable isotope analysis, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction technique, and spectroscopy techniques, namely infrared spectroscopy, visible and ultraviolet spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and fluorescence emission spectroscopy. According to a vast majority of the studies, fruit juice production fraud entails cases of adding sugar, organic acids, water, foreign fruit juices, sulfite, and cloudifiers. Also noteworthy were determining fruit content, microbiological damage indicators, and other indicators related to thermal stress, enzyme treatment, and contamination by process water. As a general conclusion, in order to accurately and quickly detect of fraud cases, researchers should always take steps to develop and update fraud detection techniques.