São Paulo, September 2019.
STATEMENT – 09/2019 TAB/ACB Standards – Brazilian Orange Juice
To whom it may concern:
Aiming to strengthen the understanding about the possibility of incidence of Alicyclobacillus (ACB) in Orange juice, Brazilian Orange Processors represented by CitrusBR decided update this communication to the orange market and juice bottlers.
Juice bottlers are concerned that the presence of ACB in consumer packaged products, under favorable conditions could lead to flavour spoilage problems in their products, with off notes described as “Smoky bacon”, “Hammy” or even “Antiseptic”.
As per AIJN Best Practices Guideline, Alicyclobacillus is an acid tolerant thermophylic microorganism which as a spore is very heat resistant and survives the usual heat processes used in the fruit juice industry. This organism can be present and readily detectable in a wide variety of common raw materials used by packers.
The current understanding is that less than 20% of ACB strains could have the potential to spoil the final product, therefore most of the samples would naturally test negative for guayacol.
Currently, despite the improvement of practices in the industry, there is no technology yet capable of completely eliminating Juice all strains of ACB without compromising other quality aspects of the product, being unrealistic to guarantee that orange juice will be absolutely free from ACB. Thus, both raw material producers and packers of finished products, need to remain aware of this organism and act to control it in order to prevent unnecessary spoilage and loss of consumer confidence.
With that said, the CitrusBR Technical Committee, representing its members Citrosuco, Cutrale and Louis Dreyfus Company, declares:
- Currently, it is not possible to guarantee absence of ACB and/or “guayacol forming” microorganisms in orange juice supplied from Brazil;
- There is, however, a good basis for an effective ACB control if adopted by both raw material producers and packers of finished products, such as the control programme stated by AIJN Alicyclobacillus Best Practice Guideline;
- As raw material manufacturers, CitrusBR members support the recommendations of the AIJN ACB Best Practice Guideline and are committed to following them, observing and implementing the necessary control points in their processes.
