Juicy Juice among other brands touts “100% juice” however if you leave it undisturbed for months on the shelf it never seems to develop any sediment. How can they be 100% juice and not have any solids? What exact process are they using to remove all the sediment and or perfectly homogenize the liquid? You will notice other shelf stable 100% juice brands tend to have a sediment, how do the large brands get around that, while still being pure juice? Is there an FDA definition of “Juice”?
Sorry, this seemed to turn into many questions.
This is totally correct. Just to add how they do it, it’s in-line filtering. The juice goes through a pipe at high pressure though a filter and all the solids are removed through this process. This is used for many edible liquids. Almost all beer is filtered in this way for example. Most varieties of beer are cloudy without filtering. The filtering of juice (and beer) increases the shelf life. In addition it makes the juice easier to turn into juice concentrate. In my country at least all the big juice brand are just reconstituted juice concentrate. Juice concentrates are by far cheaper in many regions because they are traded as a commodity on the world market so you can source it from the cheapest source. Fresh juice however has to be made locally and has a low shelf life, hence the higher price.
Moving goods without water and adding it locally seems like a win.
Orange juice, in the US at least, will also add back “flavor packs,” proprietary blends of various citrus oils and other chemicals that are close enough to fresh juice not to piss off the FDA. MUCH more than any sourcing (as you say, it’s mostly commodified, ala Trading Places), this is what differentiates juice brands, and if you get a true off-brand that is not truly fresh and scrimps on the flavor pack, old orange juice is kinda nasty. This happens with both “from concentrate” and with the slightly more expensive “not-from concentrate” stuff that is stored with its full water content but still an industrial product.