Fruit Juice Adulteration

Nationwide, school districts serve more than 56 million gallons of fruit juice each year. Unscrupulous processors can gain an economic advantage over legitimate competitors by adding water, sugar, and other ingredients to fruit juice and labeling the product as pure. However, the extent to which adulteration takes place is uncertain and difficult to detect. Inspections of juice plants are not designed to spot adulteration, and current laboratory tests have limitations. Estimates of the problem's extent vary widely for orange and apple juice, the two most frequently consumed juices. Government and industry officials believe that the adulteration rate for apple juice is insignificant, but estimates of the adulteration rate for orange juice ranges as high as 20 percent. Since the mid-1980s, the Justice Department has prosecuted seven cases of juice adulteration. These prosecutions resulted in six convictions and one acquittal. On the basis of these convictions, the Agriculture Department has taken action against three companies that remain in business and against 21 individuals to prevent them from selling juice to the school meal programs. Government and industry officials have identified two main options for enhancing the detection of adulterated juice sold to schools--conducting in-plant inspections and instituting either systematic or risk-based juice-testing programs. Although both methods could enhance detection of adulterated juices, they would be costly.

GAO found that: (1) juice adulterators have cut costs by adding less expensive ingredients to juice and labeling the product as pure; (2) although most school districts require that the juice it serves be 100 percent pure, they generally rely on the product label and the vendor's integrity to ensure that the juice meets nutritional standards; (3) the extent of juice adulteration is unclear, since juice plant inspections and laboratory tests are not designed to detect adulteration; (4) government and industry officials believe that apple juice adulteration is not a major problem, but as much as 20 percent of the orange juice sold to school meal programs may be adulterated; (5) the Department of Justice has convicted six juice adulterators and the Department of Agriculture has debarred three companies that remain in operation; and (6) in-plant inspections and juice testing programs are potentially effective but costly options for enhancing the detection of adulterated juice.