Apple juices category - en

This page describes an in-depth look at the apple juices category on OFF. The purpose was to increase the quality of this category in terms of data and contained products.

What is apple juice?

This category is part of more generic categories as fruit juices and is defined as a beverage. There are no formal definitions for these categories yet, so we have to come up with some guidelines:

• drinkable, probably without any additional preparation
• fruit based, so not the fruit itself
• apple based, and probably lots of apple

It is necessary to loop better at the products that are now in the category to get an idea what people did put in. And then we might come up with a better definition. We also like to know what is not included in this category.

Current situation

At the moment of writing (27 feb 2023) there are 3132 products in the category, of which 2800 have nutrition facts. When scrolling through the products most are called apple juice (jus de pomme).

Imposters

There are some products however that seem not to belong to this category:

• mixes of multiple fruits (pur jus pomme cassis, pur jus pomme myrtille sauvage)
• other mixes (pomme gingembre)
• apple juice concentrate (old orchard)
• Schorle - apple juice (at least 50%?) mixed with fizzy water (Schorle)
• Apple ciders - although these products do not seem to have any alcohol (Honeycrisp, First Street)
• Fruits - some products have a fruit as category. These are removed right away;
• Spices - apple juices with spices (like Thomas Le Prince, au piments)
• Diluted apple juices (Teisseire)

Subcategories

Several subcategories were already defined:

• Squeezed apple juices - for apple juices that were bottled right after pressing. These are also called pure juices (pur jus de pomme);
• Sparkling apple juices - for apple juices where carbondioxide has been added;
• Concentrated apple juices - for apple juices that were (re-)made from concentrated apple juice (reconsitituted apple juices?);
• Refrigerated squeezed apple juices - not sure what this means

Ingredients

Most apple juices contain only juice, i.e. apples. Some juices have added conservants (malic acid), vitamins (C) or flavours(?). In most cases the ingredients are missing and do not specify what kind of apples have been used.

Other observations

• Should we distinguish between filtered and unfiltered?
• Should artisanal products be a subcategory?
• How are Apple Juices different from Smoothies, Nectars and Apple Syrups (such as Diksap).

Cleaning

This first step is moving the imposters to a more appropriate category:

• Schorle - these can be moved to the category de:ApfelSchorle; (Need to go through this list)
• Mixes - can be moved to Multifruit juices, but this does not always cover the product (Ginger, Rhubarb). Need to go through this list;
• Ciders - move to Ciders;
• remove the entries from Refrigerated squeezed apple juices;

It might be necessary to rename and create some subcategories:

• Apple juices (enhanced) for products that have added vitamins and minerals?
• Concentrated Apple Juices rename to Reconstituted Apple Juices?
• Squeezed Apple Juices rename to Pure Apple Sauces?
• Refrigerated Apple Sauces to be used for products that are sold in the refrigerated aisles and must be kept refrigerated at home.

Category Definition

Using the ingredients found for Apple Juice products, it is possible to create a definition for products belonging to this category:

• required ingredients:
  • apple juice at least 98%
• optional ingredients:
  • water for reconstituted apple juice, instead of apple juice it might say apple juice from concentrate
  • carbon dioxide for sparkling apple juice
  • ascorbic acid for enhanced apple juices