The Use of Fruit and Vegetable Pastes, Purees, Pulps, and Powders as Added Sugar Ingredients in Selected Packaged Foods

The excess consumption of added sugars is associated with dental caries and an increased risk of chronic disease. Based on WHO recommendations, less than 10% of energy should come from free sugars; however, the current New Zealand (NZ) estimated intake exceeds this. Added sugar labelling is one tool to address this excess consumption. NZ only requires the declaration of total sugar on the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP). The 2022 P1058 FSANZ proposal on added sugar labelling on the NIP currently proposes a definition of added sugar that excludes processed fruit and vegetables. However, processed fruit (pastes, purees, pulps, and powders), in which the cell walls are no longer intact, is considered to be a free sugar by Public Health England. Therefore, a comprehensive definition that includes all types of added sugars to minimise the industry use of processed fruit and vegetables as sweeteners is needed. This research aimed to determine the proportion of packaged products in selected food categories that contain processed fruit and vegetables. We selected the four food product categories that were most likely to contain processed fruit, yet were often marketed as healthy: breakfast cereals, cereal bars, fruit bars, and yoghurts. Using the packaged food database Nutritrack, ingredient lists were searched for the presence of fruit or vegetable pastes, purees, pulps, and powders. Overall, 22.2% of breakfast cereals, 20.8% of cereal bars, 66.7% of fruit bars, and 13.9% of yoghurts contained at least one paste, puree, pulp, or powder. Puree was the most common form of processed fruit in all the categories except for breakfast cereals, where powder was the most common form. There was a minimal use of processed vegetables. These results suggest that a reasonable proportion of key packaged foods contain processed fruit, and given that these are high in free sugars, it should be included in the definition of added sugar to reduce industry use and enable consumers to identify lower-sugar options.