Why we don’t put just any fruit in the bottle ...

Dr. Neuhäuser, why does Eckes-Granini use only certain fruits for juice production?

We want to give people who drink our juices and nectars only the best of fruit – and in order to do that, we need certain carefully selected varieties, which we obtain from our suppliers in the form of whole fruits, fruit juice, fruit-juice concentrate or fruit puree. That distinguishes our products from others as well.

Can you name a few examples?

When selecting peaches, for example, we look for aromatic varieties with golden yellow pulp. And that is why we use Yellow Cling peaches from Spain and Percocas from Italy for granini. These peaches are available only in limited quantities, and we are the only supplier who uses no other variety for granini peach nectar. For our pineapple juice we use only yellow, especially aromatic varieties like the Smooth Cayenne from Thailand.

This sounds interesting – do you have any other examples?

Of course. The pears we use for granini are high-quality Williams Christ from Italy. Pink grapefruits are grown for us by a single producer in South Africa. Since we are his most important customer, he strives to meet our very special requirements.

How do you buy? What requirements do you set?

Consistently high quality is very important to us. And that is why we establish strict quality standards for our suppliers every year and buy only fresh fruit harvest during a current season. It is entirely possible that a given supplier may have a surplus – of apples or apple juice for example – which is stored in a warehouse. We do not accept these raw materials.

So virtually nothing escapes notice when you inspect raw materials...

That’s true. We can exercise a great deal of control on the basis of colour, odour and taste and our own chemical, physical and microbiological testing procedures. Thus we can tell, for example, whether our suppliers have harvested their fruit at peak ripeness or whether too much time has elapsed between harvesting and pressing.