Orange you glad it’s time for an OJ ranking?

Ah OJ, the queen of all the juices. It’s more complex than apple and more restrained than funky blends. When you buy a bottle you’re buying a vague idea of health. The vibrant beverage inside shrieks vitality and vitamin C, but there’s also a high natural sugar content, so moderation is advisable. Most of our Spinoff testers drink it when they’re ill, having brunch or visiting Moore Wilsons.

For this ranking we’re limiting ourselves to nationwide supermarkets, sampling seven varieties of orange juice. We poured, we savoured and we considered the merits of pulp. It’s our OJ trial, as Joel MacManus pointed out as he sat down to his flight of juices. He was nervous. So was Hayden Donnell, concerned about his ability to differentiate between squeezed and reconstituted juice. 

Both are technically orange juice, according to the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. To be sold as “fruit juice” a beverage “must be fruit juice”. (OK?) But there are some loopholes. Legally, orange juice can contain mandarin or tangelo juice without labelling, but only if that accounts for 10% or less. Looser still are the juice-adjacent beverages called “fruit drink” or “orange nectar”. They’re not orange juice and they’re certainly not in this ranking. Our criteria is limited to products containing at least 99% orange juice (fresh or reconstituted). No blends. No pretenders. 

The juices were tasted blind, with each panellist giving each sample a mark out of 10, which were then averaged out to get the final scores. So here they are, the supermarket-available OJs of Aotearoa, starting with our least favourite.

7) Keri Premium Orange Juice

3.7/10

$3.99 for 1L from New World 

Poor Keri. This is made from concentrate and we could tell – it tastes like the 1990s. “Yucky,” said Robbie Nicol, making a face. Liam Rātana reckoned it smelled like paint. “If I was served this at breakfast I’d be leaving it at the table.” The negative feedback continued. Our testers complained that, much like Gollum, this ultra-tart juice was too harsh, too pale and too thin. The lack of depth was noted by Veronica Schmidt. “I didn’t know I would deem a fruit juice shallow until this moment, but here we are.” 

Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice from concentrate (99.9%), vitamin C, flavour.

6) McCoy Orange Premium Fruit Juice

4.7/10

$4.19 for 1L from New World 

McCoy’s tastes familiar, like the basic juices I guzzled as a child before acquiring pretensions about cold-pressing. And there was hope for this underdog – three of our testers gave it a six, but it was dragged down by a one from Robbie. He found it exceedingly bitter and unexpectedly bubbly. “This one sucks ass, sorry.” Blame the reconstituted orange juice, which gives this its distinctive taste and texture: thin, tart and lacking the flavour of its competitors. But it would be fine for a mimosa.

Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: reconstituted orange juice (100%), natural flavours, vitamin C.

5) Charlie’s Honest Squeezed Orange Juice, Low Pulp

5.7/10

$6.49 for 1L at Woolworths

Charlie’s has come a long way from its West Auckland origins. Production of its orange juice shifted to Australia in 2008 and three years later the company was sold to beverage giant Asahi for $129.3 million. The brand is still ubiquitous in our supermarkets and it’s easy to forget it’s no longer New Zealand made. To Liam’s palate, something wasn’t right. “Tastes like orange mixed with something else.” Veronica, on the other hand, gave this a seven. So did Joel, who was impressed by the deep orange hue. Hayden contrarily thought it was too dark and too sweet, declaring this “orange juice for babies”. Is he a hater? “I can’t respect it even if I like it.”

Made in Australia. Ingredients:orange Juice (99%), food acid (citric acid), vitamin C.

4) Charlie’s Honest Squeezed Orange Juice

5.8/10

$6.49 for 1L from Woolworths 

This fared only marginally better than its low-pulp sibling. It’s “not bad, but not great”, said Liam. Our testers found Charlie’s cloying, describing it as “syrupy”, “astringent” and a “little bit medicinal”. Some thought it tasted like cordial. Calum Henderson suggested it might be good for kids. “But I (an adult) feel like I’m slumming it a little bit with this one.” Hayden was similarly unimpressed. “Sweet, like me, and I don’t like me,” he said, ruefully scoring this juice a five.

Made in Australia. Ingredients: orange juice (99.9%), citric acid, vitamin C.

3) Homegrown 100% Pure Orange Juice

7.9/10

$7.39 for 1L from Woolworths

Our top three juices, all made by the Hawke’s Bay-based Homegrown company, were streets ahead of the rest, with a mere 0.1 of a percentage point separating them on the podium. The pulpiest juice of all, this one elicited grand declarations of approval like “divine” and “really yum”. Veronica Schmidt reckoned it “tastes like it’s good for you”. And it’s extremely pulpy. “If I wanted to drink orange pulp, this would be great,” said Liam judiciously. Hayden Donnell, cautious of repeating The Skippy Incident, thought Homegrown tasted “expensive” and he’s right. Also up there is the sugar content: 9.2g per 100ml is the highest of all our juices and only a bit less than Sprite’s 9.9g. Although they’re surprising, the numbers make sense. An average bottle contains the juice of nine to 10 squeezed oranges. 

Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice.

2) Homegrown 100% Pure Orange Juice, Low Pulp

8/10

$6.99 for 1L from Pak’nSave 

This is “about as good as commercial juice is going to get”, declared Henry Oliver. I agreed and gave this 10/10. Hayden, having an artisanal husks moment, likened it to an orange crushed directly into his glass. Joel agreed, but wondered whether we should be eating one of those instead. “It’s not trying hard enough to be juice, he reckoned, but still gave it a seven.

Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice.

1) Homegrown 100% Pure Orange Juice, No Pulp

8.1/10

$8.99 for 1475ml at Pak’nSave

The supreme winner, Homegrown’s pulp-free option has all the vibrant flavour of its siblings without all the bits. Henry gave it its lowest score among the panellists, still a pretty decent 7/10. “It’s missing something,” he noted, correctly. “Pulp.” Still, it appealed to all palates, earning full marks from an impressed Liam. “Perfect orange juice,” he ruled. “This is what I want with a Sunday breakfast.” 

Made in New Zealand. Ingredients: orange juice.