Cold Press Organic Juice- The Process

Cold Pressing is an alternative form of juice extraction to blending and the centrifugal process. To understand the benefits and process of Cold Press it will be helpful to first understand the alternatives.

The Industry Standards

Blending: Blending is a simple process I am sure we’re all familiar with. Rotating metal blades cut through the fruit or vegetables at extreme speeds, liquidizing and mixing juice and pulp into one mixture. Depending on the specific end product, pulp or no pulp, this mixture is either filtered or left as is to be processed further before bottling.

Centrifugal: Centrifugal processing is similar to blending with rotating blades breaking down the fruit and vegetables. The benefit of the centrifugal processing is that the chamber itself rotates at high speeds, in excess of 10,000rpm, causing the juice to fly to the edge of the chamber where it is siphoned off for processing and leaving behind the pulp to be processed in its own way.

In both processes here we have two major disadvantages that reduce the quality of the juice and it’s nutritional content.

Disadvantages of Standard Methods

Oxidisation: The process of cutting the produce with spinning blades introduces air into the juice mixture. When the oxygen in the air mixes with the aromatics, (the chemicals which give fruits and veg their smell and flavour), and the nutrients, (the vitamins and minerals), they react in a process known as oxidation. Oxidation strips away the electrons that chemicals use to bond themselves to each other, causing the aromatics and nutrients to break down at a chemical level and making them inefficient and ineffective for the body, not to mention their loss of taste and flavour. 

The simple process of oxidation we are all familiar with is how quickly an apple begins to brown after being cut or bitten into. In the time it takes to eat an apple and the tiny amount of browning that happens therein, we have no problem eating the apple and its flavour isn’t necessarily affected. But leave that apple out for half an hour, an hour? Are you going to eat that apple? Probably not, and so you would also not desire to drink juice that has undergone the same process.

Heating: The other issue with these methods is that heat is introduced to the produce and the resulting juice. Blades spinning several thousand times a minute introduces friction into the mixture, the friction causes heat and the heat causes a break down in the nutrients that our body needs and wants from the juices. It is something we learn in high-school chemistry, that heat speeds up chemical reactions. All living things breakdown eventually, but if you apply heat to the mixture that process is sped up ten-fold.  The ‘International Journal of Scientific Technology’ measured the degradation of Vitamin C in five vegetables after 30 minutes of exposure to temperatures of 60⁰C.

The samples included pepper, peas, spinach, pumpkin and carrot. After 5 minutes the samples had lost on average 10% of their Vitamin C content. After a further 10 minutes they had lost an average of 33% of their Vitamin C content. After the final 15minutes they had lost on average 55% of their Vitamin C content.

Within 30 minutes of exposure to heat at 60⁰C, the vegetables had lost over half of their Vitamin C content and so all of that Vitamin C would never make it to the consumer.

Cold Press Method

Here is where the magic of Cold Press comes into play. Cold Pressing eliminates both of these factors to ensure the highest quality, nutrient dense juice makes it from the farm to your fridge.

Cold Pressing is very literally about pressing the juice whole between two metal plates. A hydraulic press is used to apply a uniform pressure over every single cell of the fruit and vegetable and continue to press until the cell wall itself bursts open. Imagine taking a grape in your hand and squeezing until the skin bursts, this occurs in the Cold Press at the cellular level, releasing all the juice and nutrient content from within the cell itself. This ensures that everything except the now dry and tasteless pulp, that existed only to store the delicious and nutritious juice within, is removed from the plant and delivered to you.

Advantages of Cold Press

As this process takes place between two flat metal plates there is no mixing of the juice with the air and so the process of oxidation is absolutely minimized.

Furthering to this there is no excess heat added or generated by the process and so again the nutrient content as well as the flavour profile is unaffected and remains as natural and fresh as it is possible to be.

These factors as well as the lack of processing requirements post-pressing, ensure that our Sown and Grown cold press organic juices are of the utmost quality, packed with the greatest nutrient content and the delightful flavours that nature intended. Couple that with our Organic farming techniques to ensure the highest quality produce before it reaches the press, and you can be assured of the quality, taste and health of our fruits and veg as they make their way to your door.