A staggering 18 per cent of foods featuring fruit on their packaging contain no fruit at all, new research has found.

Where is the Fruit?, a study carried out by CC Marketing in Ireland for European fresh produce trade body Freshfel, found widespread misuse of the fresh produce image among fast-moving consumer goods in major European markets.

Freshfel’s food policy adviser Raquel Izquierdo de Santiago said: “In the new wave of health-conscious consumers, it has become more and more common to have references to fruit or see images of fresh fruit and vegetables depicted on all types of products.”

However, she warns that with the arrival of EU Regulation 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods, the use of “pictorial, graphic or symbolic representations in any form, which states, suggests or implies that a food has particular characteristics” is included in the definition of what constitutes a “claim” and has to abide by the regulation.

CC carried out its research in nine European countries including the UK, representing more than 75 per cent of the whole EU-27 population. Researchers examined 23 product groups such as yoghurts, cakes, sauces, sweets, smoothies and teas that gave a total of 207 products that were then catalogued based on the type of fruit ingredients they contained.

From the products analysed in the research, 18 per cent contained no fruit at all and 17 per cent had more than 50 per cent fruit content.

Given the new EU regulation on nutrition and health claims, only 13.5 per cent of the products would be allowed to carry images of fresh fruit on their packages without being in breach of the EU requirements and misleading consumers.

Nigel Jenney, ceo of the Fresh Produce Consortium, said: “This research is quite damning about some of the spurious claims made for the fresh fruit content of some food... If consumers want to be confident that they are getting their 5 A DAY then we encourage them to enjoy the ultimate convenience food - the wide range of fresh produce available to the UK consumer.”

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