Three weeks ago, BEAR asked Mumsnetters for their views on a number of questions about what mattered to them when it came to buying snacks for their children’s lunchboxes. Over 900 of you responded (thank you!), and the research showed that 9 in 10 respondents are concerned about the amounts of highly processed ingredients in children’s fruit snacks, and that over half were unclear about what fruit snacks counted towards their child’s 5-a-day. What came through most strongly was that 3 in 4 want fruit juice concentrates to be declared on front-of-pack. BEAR's explanation of concentrates is that they 'are fruit juices that have been boiled at a high temperature down to a syrup, removing water and flavour, and then reconstituted later adding water and flavour packs, stripping out a lot of fibre and leaving more processed fruit sugars’.
The labelling of concentrates on front of pack is already compulsory on fruit juice packaging in the UK www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/192357/fruit-juice-si-20130425.pdf, but this doesn't apply to fruit snacks. BEAR wants to change that, and is lobbying the Department of Health (DoH) to address this. BEAR has asked if Mumsnet would like to co-sign the letter that will go to the DoH demanding this change.
So, we'd like you to let us know what you think. Should Mumsnet get behind a change in packaging that means that it’s compulsory for fruit concentrates to be declared on the front of pack?
Everyone who shares their opinions on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 Love2Shop voucher!
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MNHQ
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Tell MNHQ what you think of the idea of us campaigning with BEAR for changes in food packaging
MichelleMumsnet · 27/10/2015 13:15
Sorry, posted too soon 
.... BEAR would like to say:
"Thanks for the questions.
"It’s not time, but temperature, that affects the nutrients within food. In the same way that steaming veg is better at retaining the original nutrients and vitamins than boiling within water, it’s much better for fruit to cook it gently than to blast it at high heat. To give another example of this- sundried foods are nice and healthy. They’ve been baked outside by nature at much lower temperatures than you’d probably cook them in the oven- they’re actually left out in the sun for days or weeks. The only reason we don’t do it this way is that you tend to have to use chemical preservatives on sundried products to keep animals away which we’d never do- baking them the way we do also gives us much better control on keeping things clean etc.
"On your question MrPorky, the simplest answer is that raw fruit and veg is always going to hang on to the most nutrients- so raw veg would have even more vitamins than cooked ones, but cooked ones are obviously still great for you. Vitamin C in particular is one of the ones that tends to be affected by heat- a lightly cooked carrot would have less vitamin c than a raw one. Interestingly though, things like iron, magnesium and potassium tend to be higher in baked fruits.
"Overall, baking at low temperatures as we do means that we can hang on to almost all of the goodness that you find in the fruit that we started with. As with any cooking at home that we do with fruit or veg, there will be a slight impact on some of the nutrients, but overall it’s still crammed full, high in fibre, and very barely processed."
Of course they're paying. MN was founded on a gap in the market and is a commercial enterprise too 
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