Fruit puree is fruit flesh reduced to a smooth or lightly textured suspension, usually after heating to inactivate enzymes, then either frozen in drums or filled aseptically into bag-in-box. It is bought by manufacturers who want fruit character without fruit handling.
The four main destinations
Dairy. Fruit preparations for yoghurt and desserts are the largest single outlet. Dairy buyers care about colour stability through pasteurisation, controlled acidity, and behaviour under shear in a dosing line. They generally want a defined sieve residue rather than the smoothest possible product, because a little texture reads as authenticity.
Beverages. Smoothies, nectars and mixed juice drinks use puree for body and mouthfeel that clarified juice cannot supply. Here the critical parameters are Brix, acidity and pulp content, and the puree usually competes directly against concentrate on delivered solids.
Bakery and confectionery. Fillings, glazes and fruit centres. These buyers need predictable water activity and behaviour under bake, and they frequently buy concentrated puree rather than single strength to reduce the water they have to drive off.
Infant and clinical nutrition. The most demanding outlet. The compositional specification is tight, the contaminant expectations sit well below general food limits, and the audit burden is heavy. Apple and pear purees dominate, and the patulin provisions consolidated in Regulation (EU) 2023/915 are treated as an intake-sorting problem rather than a testing one.
What separates the specifications
Four parameters do most of the work: Brix, titratable acidity, sieve residue or particle size distribution, and the heat treatment regime. A fifth, packaging format, is not a quality parameter but drives the buyer’s handling: frozen drums need thawing capacity, while aseptic bag-in-box can be opened into a line at ambient.
The puree and concentrate guide sets out the full parameter list and the questions to ask about aseptic integrity.