What Were They Thinking? — Where’s the Beef, er, Juice?

“What Were They Thinking?” highlights products and presentations which just don’t make sense.

I felt like the old lady from that Wendy’s commercial once I read the ingredients on this bottle of “Cranberry Grapefruit” Fuze:

Filtered Water, Crystalline Fructose, White Grape Juice Concentrate, Citric Acid, Cranberry Juice Concentrate, Natural Flavor, Red Grape Juice Concentrate (for color), Ascorbic Acid (C), Soy Protein Isolate and Rice Flour, Niacin (B3), Calcium Pantonthenate, Vitamin E Acetate, Selenium complexed with amino acids and polypeptides, Black Currant Juice Concentrate, Raspberry Juice Concentrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (B6), Vitamin A Palmitate, Caramel Color, Cyanacobalamin (B12).

So where the hell is the “grapefruit”?  Does this constitute false advertising?  (The beverage tasted sort of like grapefruit, but not all that much, which was why I read the label.)

A quick check of other Fuze products reveals similar lapses.  While the “Orange Carrot” lists both orange and carrot in the ingredients, the “Peach Mango” apparently has neither peaches or mangoes in it (unless they collapse under “Natural Flavor”).  And the “Mixed Berry” shows blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries on the bottle, but only contains the juice from one of the three in the ingredients.

Here’s a site with the ingredients for all their drinks.

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Updated on September 14, 2003

Updated on July 9, 2004

Remixed into Weblog

Updated on September 2, 2010

It looks like Fuze has changed their ways over the years.  The offending drink types have been retired, and the ingredients all seem to match the labeling these days.  Good for them.