Fruit Juice Australia CEO, Geoff Parker admits the bad press has squeezed the industry, saying sales have dropped 3 per cent year on year.
"There's been a lot of misinformation, dare I say, perhaps an understatement, around fruit and fruit juice of late and particularly from the anti-sugar proponents," Parker said as journalists sipped their waters. "The data that we're going to present today, I think will surprise you."
It shows, he said, the "really important role that fruit juice plays in our diet".
The data are that 93 per cent of Australian adults are not eating the recommended two daily serves of fruit.
The Australian Dietary Guidelines say that a small, 125mL glass of fruit juice with no added sugar consumed occasionally can count towards a serve of fruit.
"When fruit juice was also counted as a fruit serve, the percentage of Australians who reached their daily recommended fruit target more than doubled," Malcolm Riley, CSIRO's lead researcher said.
Just how occasional is 'occasionally' is unclear, although Riley said he would suggest it means "less than once a day".
Riley said that the CSIRO analysis found that fruit juice provided about 60 per cent of total vitamin C, 16 per cent folate and 14 per cent potassium amongst people who consumed juice on the surveyed day.
In the presentation, Riley says that across the population, only 1 per cent of energy and 3.5 per cent of sugar is coming from fruit juice.
This figure is divided to average out across people who don't drink juice too. Of those who do drink juice, the sugar contribution jumps to 20 per cent of their daily intake.
