Food critics berate P&G’s Sunny Delight

Procter & Gamble’s new chilled fruit drink, Sunny Delight, has been slammed by food experts for containing only five per cent fruit juice.

Procter & Gamble’s new chilled fruit drink, Sunny Delight, has been slammed by food experts for containing only five per cent fruit juice.

Dr Tim Lobstein, co-director of food watchdog group The Food Commission, claims the product’s packaging misleads parents into thinking it is a pure juice drink, when its biggest ingredient is water and its second biggest is sucrose. He describes it as “sugar water”.

The drink, which launched on April 1, is being heavily promoted with a 10m marketing campaign covering TV, poster and press advertising through Saatchi & Saatchi.

Sunny Delight is described as an “enriched citrus beverage” and is labelled as containing vitamins A-B 1 & 6 and C. The packaging makes no claim that Sunny Delight is a fruit juice.

Jack Winkler, chairman of Action & Information on Sugar, says: “The product looks like orange juice, but the first ingredient is water and the second sucrose – it is not a healthy drink. P&G is clearly trying to present this on a health platform.”

A P&G spokesman says: “The product is not orange juice and it does not claim to be orange juice. At the same time, the vitamin enrichment makes it a healthy drink for kids.”