Apple Puree

The trade separates natural puree, containing nothing but apple, from sweetened puree with added sugar and from puree with added ascorbic acid or citric acid for colour and pH control. Single strength and concentrated grades are quoted separately, the concentrate specified by Brix, and both are offered in cloudy form only, since a clarified apple product is a juice rather than a puree.

Variety and blend define quality within those categories. Culinary varieties of the Bramley type give a sharper, higher acid puree that breaks down completely on cooking, while dessert varieties give a sweeter, milder product. Colour is a grading criterion in its own right, with light grades made from peeled or steam treated fruit under tight oxidation control and standard grades carrying a deeper straw colour. Organic certified puree is a substantial separate line. Baby food grade puree is the most demanding grade in the category, produced to tighter limits for patulin, pesticide residues and heavy metals and audited against a customer specific protocol.

Apple puree is a food rather than a food additive, so it carries no E number of its own. In the European Union Directive 2001/112/EC as amended defines fruit purée and concentrated fruit purée, and sets out what may be sold under each name, which treatments it allows and what may be added. Regulation 852/2004 and the general food law govern manufacture. In the United States the product is a conventional food made under the preventive controls rules at 21 CFR Part 117. Because it sits below pH 4.6 it is an acid food, so the low acid canned food registration requirements do not apply, although the thermal process is still established and documented.

Patulin is the defining contaminant for this commodity. Maximum levels for patulin in apple products, with a tighter level for products intended for infants and young children, are set in Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915, and the United States applies an action level for patulin in apple juice and apple juice products, with control resting on fruit sorting rather than on any process step. Regulation 396/2005 sets pesticide residue limits in the European Union, and 40 CFR Part 180 sets tolerances in the United States. Where the puree is destined for infant food, the far stricter compositional and contaminant provisions of Regulation 2006/125/EC on processed cereal based foods and baby foods and its successors apply to the finished food and are passed back to the ingredient by specification. Codex maintains a standard for certain canned fruits and a general standard for contaminants which cover patulin.