Consumer Advocate Calls for FDA Enforcement Action Against Lemon Juice Makers

The National Consumers League has written to Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, asking the agency to take
enforcement action against several companies that label their products as
“100%” lemon juice, while they actually contain 35 percent or less lemon juice.
According to the March 21, 2012, letter, “The products tested omit requisite
amounts of real lemon juice and substitute water, citric acid, and in some
cases sugar. The cheating is concealed by labeling the products as ‘100%’
lemon juice or simply ‘Lemon Juice from concentrate,’ and the producers make
it appear that the products are of greater value than they really are.”

Included with the letter are labels from four different products and lab reports
from the company that apparently tested them. The National Consumers
League characterizes the juice as “heavily diluted with water beyond what is
necessary and appropriate to reconstitute the product.” Its letter also notes
that this product “is a staple in the American diet. More than 5000 recipes call
for the use of lemon juice on just one cooking World Wide Web site alone.”
Given weather fluctuations that affect the citrus harvest, the league suggests
that “some companies have a motivation to cheat.”