This Aussie Family Created A Waste-Free Apple Juice To Help Local Farmers

An apple-farming family in Queensland have invented a nifty new fruit drink that reduces food waste by using all the parts of an apple, minus the seeds and core. The new Australian apple product is described as neither a juice nor a nectar, but instead a healthy and filling drink or snack.

The ABC reports how the Savio family, hailing from Stanthorpe, invested a million dollars over three years of research as they searched for a way to turn both apple skin and pulp into a drinkable liquid form. Traditionally, when apples are turned into juice many of the most nutritious parts of the fruit, such as the peel and pulp, are trashed. The family took on this challenge, seeking to find a way that a whole apple could be used responsibly.

From this came ‘Upple’, marketed as a deliciously drinkable ‘whole apple in a bottle.’ The drink comes in both Pink Lady and Granny Smith varieties and has a 5-star health rating. Upple has a four-month shelf life which the Savio’s are hoping will encourage people to increase their fruit consumption. For anyone who has braces but love apples, this is sure to be a hit.

“It appeals to parents because often they find it difficult to have fruit with them when they’re out and about, and to the 18-to-40 age group, which is very conscious about consuming healthy nutritious snacks on the run with no fat, no added sugar and lots of fibre,” said Deb Loosely, brand consultant and project leader.

The project was instigated to help battle fruit waste as retail specifications become increasingly harder on which fruit is good enough for supermarket display. Supermarkets are reportedly rejecting fruit with bruises or blemishes that was once good enough for display standards and are now downgrading it to juice prices, causing concerns for local farmers. How to reduce food waste has been an ongoing concern in Australia, but thankfully Upple is a nutritious and green solution Australian apple juice solution that helps to combat fruit waste. Plus all the packaging is made entirely from recycled plastic.

The Savio’s consulted with the University of Queensland to find a method of pulverising apples that retained the fresh apple taste. Gordon Young, a food processing engineer on the project, said that the biggest challenge was “to find a way of getting the viscosity, the thickness of the product, down to a level that was pleasant to drink.” Following two years of tests, he now has a patent pending for the successful process.

Should the sales of Upple be successful, the Savio family are planning to build a factory on their farm and gather retail-rejected apples from all around their local district.