From market requirements to product specs: Brix, product form, packaging

AgrifoodV · Published 18 October 2026

When discussing a fruit juice plant project, many investors immediately ask “how many tonnes per hour should the line be”. A different question has to come first: what exactly will the plant deliver to the buyer, at what Brix, in what packaging, and which market will measure it. These three parameters decide whether an evaporator is needed, whether an aseptic line is needed, and even the duty a shipment will pay. This article is the second step of the journey, following on from the design brief: turning market requirements into concrete product specifications.

Design starts with defining the product

In the chapter “Process Specification” of the Handbook of Food Factory Design (Springer, 2013), D.L. Pyle describes the design of a plant as an iterative cycle. The cycle begins by defining the products and their recipes, which leads to a simplified flowsheet, and then to preliminary estimates of material, energy and service requirements. Each iteration checks yields, quality, HACCP, wastes, energy, costs and the market. According to Pyle, products must meet defined quality measures, so the production process must deliver matching levels of consistency, hygiene and control.

Pyle makes two further points that fit Vietnamese agri-food plants closely. First, very few factories make a single product all year, because different raw materials become available at different times of the year. Second, cleaning in place (CIP) must be part of the design remit from the outset, because changing products on the same equipment usually involves a cleaning cycle. In other words, until the product list is fixed, the designer cannot correctly calculate the production schedule, the number of intermediate tanks or the downtime for cleaning.

For fruit juice, a “product definition” contains at least three figures: Brix, product form and packaging format. The Handbook of Food Processing Equipment by G.D. Saravacos and A.E. Kostaropoulos notes that Brix (percent sucrose by weight, measured with a refractometer) is used widely both in the laboratory and in the processing plant, and is the basis of material balances.

Brix: the same fruit, a different benchmark in each market

Buyers do not simply ask for “passion fruit juice”; they ask for passion fruit juice that meets a given benchmark under a given regulation. The table below compares the Brix benchmarks of three markets for four tropical fruits in which Vietnam is strong. All figures have been checked against the original texts.

The three texts use Brix benchmarks in three different ways, and this is where mistakes are easy to make:

• EU: fruit juice from concentrate, once reconstituted with potable water, must meet the minimum Brix in Annex V. For a fruit not listed in Annex V, the benchmark is the Brix of the juice as extracted from the fruit used to make the concentrate. The product must state “from concentrate(s)” or “partially from concentrate(s)”. Concentrated fruit juice intended for direct consumption must have at least 50% of its water content removed.
• US: 21 CFR 101.30 requires beverages containing juice to declare “Contains __ percent juice”. In enforcement, FDA calculates the percentage of juice from concentrate using the Brix levels in the table in paragraph (h)(1). Reconstituted passion fruit juice counts as 100% only at 14.0.
• Japan: JAS 1075 for fruit beverages (most recently amended by MAFF Notification No. 606 of 25 May 2023) sets two thresholds: a product is called a concentrate only at or above the value in Table A.1; reconstituted juice must reach at least the value in Table A.3.

The consequence for the plant: the same lot of passion fruit juice at 13 Brix may meet the EU benchmark but fall short of the 100% basis used in the US and Japan. The Brix benchmark of each target market must be written into the product specification before choosing fruit varieties, purchasing ripeness and equipment parameters.

Product form: NFC, concentrate or purée

The example in the book by Saravacos and Kostaropoulos is a medium-sized orange plant processing 20 tonnes of fruit per hour and operating 2,400 hours a year. The plant simultaneously makes aseptically packaged 12 Brix orange juice, 42 Brix frozen concentrated orange juice in metal cans and 65 Brix concentrate in bulk containers, plus by-products. The book states clearly that the split of juice between products in the example is arbitrary, while in practice it is dictated by market demand.

The material balance in the book shows how far product form changes a plant. Applying the same method (the mass of soluble solids stays constant when water is removed), 1,000 kg of juice at 12 Brix concentrated to 65 Brix leaves only about 185 kg, which means about 815 kg of water must be evaporated. That water requires steam. According to Pyle, in an idealised evaporator 1 kg of steam produces around 1 kg of vapour; in practice the figure is only about 0.6–0.8 kg. A two-effect evaporator uses the vapour from the first effect to heat the second, so the same 1 kg of steam evaporates almost twice as much water. Each additional effect saves energy but adds investment cost; the optimum is where benefits and costs balance.

Product form also determines duty. According to the Korea Customs FTA portal for 2026, pineapple juice below 20 Brix pays 40% under VKFTA, while pineapple juice concentrate above 20 Brix pays 0%. In Saudi Arabia, according to the ZATCA tariff, NFC pineapple juice pays 10% and pineapple concentrate 5%. These differences are locked in the moment the product form is chosen, before any equipment is bought (see also the article on pineapple juice exports).

Packaging: a design parameter, not the last step

In the orange plant example, each product comes with its own packaging: aseptic packaging for juice, metal cans for 42 Brix concentrate, bulk containers for 65 Brix concentrate. The flowsheet of the tomato paste plant in the same chapter ends with three steps: sterilization, aseptic packaging and aseptic storage. A packaging format therefore brings with it a whole group of equipment, a storage area and a thermal regime for the finished product.

Saravacos and Kostaropoulos give two figures worth writing into the brief. First, 60–80% of a food plant’s operating cost is raw materials and packaging materials; the rest is labour, energy and depreciation, about 10% each. Second, because food raw materials and products cannot be stored for long, companies need additional capital for storage of raw materials, finished products and packaging materials. A wrong packaging choice therefore affects both the cost per tonne and working capital.

In the EU, the label of a juice from concentrate must carry the words “from concentrate(s)”; in the US, beverages containing juice must declare the percentage of juice. When a plant sells semi-finished products to a bottler, these requirements sit on the buyer’s label, but the plant’s Brix and origin specification is what allows the buyer to label correctly.

What companies should do

AgrifoodV recommends:

• Draw up a product specification for each target market before requesting equipment quotations: fruit, product form, target Brix, the minimum Brix benchmark under that market’s regulation, and packaging format.
• Look up the HS code and duty for each product form (NFC, concentrate, purée) in each market, and use the results to choose the product form.
• Require the designer to prepare material and energy balances based on this specification: water to be evaporated, steam demand, number of evaporator effects, packaging storage and finished-goods storage.
• If the plant will run several seasonal fruits, put the product changeover schedule and CIP cycles into the brief from the start.

AgrifoodV supports companies in choosing markets and products and in building the brief and product specifications and setting the design direction of processing plants.

References

1. Pyle, D.L. “Process Specification”, chapter 2 in Baker, C.G.J. (ed.), Handbook of Food Factory Design. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2013 (pp. 13–14, 21, 43–44, 49 used). DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-7450-0_2.
2. Saravacos, G.D. and Kostaropoulos, A.E. “Design of Food Processes and Food Processing Plants”, chapter 1 in Handbook of Food Processing Equipment. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2002, pp. 1–46 (pp. 19–22, 37–40 used).
3. Council of the European Union. Directive 2001/112/EC of 20 December 2001 relating to fruit juices and certain similar products intended for human consumption, Annex I and Annex V. Consolidated version of 14 June 2026 (CELEX 02001L0112-20260614). eur-lex.europa.eu.
4. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 21 CFR 101.30, Percentage juice declaration for foods purporting to be beverages that contain fruit or vegetable juice. ecfr.gov.
5. Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF). JAS 1075:2023 for fruit beverages, established 22 July 1998, amended by Notification No. 606 of 25 May 2023, Annex A. maff.go.jp.
6. Korea Customs Service. FTA portal, VKFTA duty rates for 2026 for HSK 2009.41 and 2009.49. customs.go.kr.
7. Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority of Saudi Arabia (ZATCA). Integrated tariff, heading 2009. zatca.gov.sa.

Article by AgrifoodV, compiled and interpreted from the sources above (accessed 17–19 October 2026). This content is not a substitute for design advice or legal advice for any specific project. Cover image: Mark Stebnicki / Pexels.

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