As Australian consumers look to eat healthier, they’re increasingly looking at fresh juices as a convenient way to get produce into their daily diets.

While vegetables play a role in this juicing trend (both commercially and in at-home consumption), there’s been little research done on the Australian vegetable juice market, what drives consumption of vegetable juices, and what potential the market offers to growers.

A recently completed levy-funded project undertaken by Horizon Consumer Research has aimed to rectify this lack of knowledge by undertaking desktop research, retail audits and consumer research to help our industry understand what opportunities offer the most potential for growers and the industry as a whole.

The full range of findings from the project will be made available to growers in the coming months, but you can check out some of the key highlights below:

• Approximately 93,000 tonnes of vegetables (or 3 per cent of total annual vegetable production in Australia) are consumed in juice form in Australia every year.
• The majority of this consumption is in commercial products – 48 per cent of consumption is from pre-packaged juice and 23 per cent is made fresh to order, with the remaining proportion made fresh at home
• The vast majority of vegetable juice by volume is made up of only six vegetables: tomatoes (29 per cent), carrots (24 per cent), celery (11 per cent), beetroot (10 per cent), cucumber (6 per cent) and kale (4 per cent). All other vegetables and herbs only account for about 16 per cent of consumption.
• A significant amount of people actually drink vegetable juice as a meal replacement for their breakfast.

The information from the final report will be a valuable resource for growers looking to identify new paths to market for their produce, or new product formats that can target consumers looking for juicing-friendly vegetables, so take a look at it on the InfoVeg database!

This content first appeared in Hort Innovation’s quarterly Hortlink publication, available in full on the Hort Innovation website. Stay in the loop by becoming a member of Hort Innovation – paying a levy doesn’t automatically make you a member, but signing up is free and easy. Click here to sign up now.

This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 10 April 2018. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!