I consider myself to be “on top” of most things when it comes to the state of things that are made in China. But there’s one topic that has escaped my attention for many years: apple juice.
As far back as 2011, the USDA reported that two-thirds of the U.S. apple juice supply came from China. It’s shocking to see, but this official Web site of the US government actually seems to celebrate this fact of how “market reforms in the 1980s encouraged Chinese farmers to diversify their incomes by planting apples and other horticultural plots”. They speak—without any sense of irony—of how nobody drinks apple juice in China; they grow apple crops solely for the purpose of selling to the United States.
Notice what they don’t mention? How American farmers and farmland was decimated. How toxins and pollutants in China’s environment end up in everything they grow. What happened in 2007, just 4 years prior to this puff piece being written. And what happened in 1989 at the end of the decade of China’s supposed ‘market reforms”.
This piece written in 2011 is a good reminder of how oblivious the US was to the threat of China. To the contrary, executives of American corporations were falling over themselves to close their US factories down and to whitewash China’s human rights abuses, all so they could see record profits.
Not only were human rights abuses whitewashed, news about China using rotten apples in their factories, and China shipping juice with excessive amounts of arsenic never made it to the public. We just kept buying juice by the gallon and drinking it.
What’s the situation today?
Most online publications continue to cite this 66% figure from 2011. If I’m reading the latest reports from the USDA properly, it looks like the percentage of apple juice from China has actually gone down as a percentage of total exports.
But as recently in September 2024. The following brands of apple juice, sold by Walmart, Walgreens, Aldi, Weis, Market Basket, BJ’s, Dollar General, Lidl, and Brooklyn Fare across 26 states were recalled due to elevated levels of arsenic. The recall affected the following brands, all produced by the same company, Refresco Beverages.
- Great Value (Walmart)
- Nature’s Nectar (Aldi)
- Market Basket (Market Basket)
- Nice! (Walgreens)
- Weis (Weis)
- Urban Meadow (Brooklyn Fare)
- Wellsley Farm (BJ’s)
- Solevita (Lidl)
- Clover Valley (Dollar General)
- Tropical Delight (various retailers in New York)
Funny how the news media never mentions where the apple juice concentrate came from (NBC, CNN, all have business interests in China too). But a little searching on the Web reveals it.


How can I tell where the juice comes from?
I usually tell people to look for the label that says “made in the USA’. But in this case, remember that if they ship apple juice concentrate from all over the world and then mix it with water in the US, they can claim it as made in the USA.
My general rule: if it says “from concentrate”, then there’s a good chance that apples from China got in there. Here are bottles from Apple and Eve, Tropicana, Shop Rite, Minute Maid, and Dole.





You’ll see the same thing on other brands like Everfresh, Motts, Langers, and many more.
Generally speaking, you’ll find what country (or more likely, countries) supply the apples for their juice on the label, imprinted on the bottle, or imprinted on the cap.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Think of every product that uses apple juice, like sauces, jams, baked goods, marinades, sauces, beverage blends, jelly and candy, fruit snacks and chews, and health bars. The more they can hide the product, the more likely it’s cheap stuff from China.
Do you remember in 2011 when China apple juice was shown to have high levels of arsenic? Of course you don’t. By that time, China had learned their lesson from 2007 and the melamine pet food scandal—rely on your American benefactors to put their PR machines in full gear to erase any bad news from the media. Which, of course, they did.
Where to draw the line with Made in China
I’ve come to accept that there are certain things that we just have to throw up our hands and admit that we’re not going to find a lot of outside of China manufacturers, things I’ve mentioned like cheap electronics that American and European companies can’t make a profit on anymore (waffle makers, toasters) and new electronics where American and Europeans gave away the store to China (drones, 3D printers).
Where I have always drawn the line—and where you should too—is anything you ingest into your body or more importantly, anything that your child ingests into his or her body. Think about the quality of a waffle maker 30 years ago vs. one today. You can see very clearly that while the old ones would last for decades, the new ones break after a few years, because American and European brands know they will profit.

As horrifying as it sounds, big American food companies couldn’t care less about your health. As long as something like apple juice looks clear, tastes good, and passes all the required tests, they’re okay going after the cheapest contractor to deliver it. Of course anyone with a functioning brain knows that China is filled with pollution in its air, water, and soil. That makes its way into the produce it grows, even if you can’t see it. And that makes its way into your body and your childrens’ bodies.
This chart from Jeff Nobbs shows that today, 6 in 10 Americans suffer from some kind of chronic disease. No, all of this can’t be attributed to China. But China plays a vital role. As more and more of the food supply gets into the hands of a few companies, and these companies have to show continual profits quarter after quarter, they’re going to seek out the absolute cheapest solution. If a garlic grower from Gilroy, California charges $5 to $20 per kilogram of garlic, while a grower from China charges $0.77 to $1.21 a kilogram, where is every supermarket going to go to get theirs?
The one thing that saving us from total domination of China produce is Americans who read labels and refuse to eat fruit and vegetables from China. But China has other ways of getting into our food supplies. Those who refuse to buy heads of garlic grown in China are almost certainly buying garlic powder sourced from China (even if it says “made in USA”). Any garlic in processed food almost certainly is from China.
It sounds hopeless, but all we can do is draw the line. Refuse to buy any produce labeled as Made in China, buy from local farms, and put pressure on big corporations to reveal sourcing for their ingredients.
Who the heck sells juice from USA apples anymore?
The good news is, there are producers of apple juice who have stuck to their guns and remained in America, using USA grown apples from USA farmers and farmland. The might be a few cents more expensive than the ones from concentrate, but you really get what you pay for.



The Best Apple Juice Not Sourced or Made in China
1. Martinelli’s Apple Juice
This is actually one of my all-time favorite apple juices. You might recognize them from the cute little glass bottles that look like tiny jugs. Once you taste it, you’ll realize that brands like Tropicana or Motts taste like syrup. Martinelli’s tastes crisp, clear, and with just the right amount of sweetness.
All of their apples come from Watsonville, California and the juice is pressed and then flash pasteurized, never concentrated or frozen. You can read their story for yourself on every label.
Martinelli’s Gold Medal Organic Apple Juice is made from a special blend of the finest varieties of 100% U.S. grown fresh organic apples…not from concentrate. It contains absolutely no concentrates or water, no preservatives or sweeteners, and no additives of any kind.
Established in 1868, S. Martinelli & Company is a fourth generation family business in California’s beautiful Pajaro Valley near Monterey Bay where the cool coastal climate and fertile soils produce some of the world’s most flavorful apples. More than 50 gold mdels for product excellence have been awarded to Martinelli’s Gold Medal apple juice products. In Martinelli’s unique process, fresh apples are blended to achieve a perfect balance of natural sweetness and tartness. Then, using a special method, the apples are washed, sorted and pressed. The juice is flash pasteurized to retain the natural fresh apple flavor.
You can buy it at many local supermarkets, or from Amazon Fresh, Fresh Direct, or Instacart.
2. Langers Apple Juice
If Martinelli’s is a little too rich for your blood, Langers Apple Juice is a bit more affordable. They don’t press their juice, but make their juice from concentrate. This saves a lot of money in processing, as they can store their concentrate for long periods of time and then reconstitute the juice by adding water.
That’s how a lot of other companies like Tropicana do it. The difference is that Langers promises that they use only 100% USA grown apples, including gala, honey crisp, and red delicious apples from Washington State and Granny Smith and Fuji apples from California.
You can pick some up at most local supermarkets, as well as Amazon Fresh and Instacart.
3. Treetop Apple Juice
Tree Top apple juice is more commonly found in the Western part of the United States, but if you’re lucky you can find it at your local supermarket or a site like Walmart or Instacart. Avoid Amazon on this one, at least on the East Coast, as all you see are resellers who are price gouging.
Similar to Langers it says on its Web site that it is a farmer grown, farmer owned cooperative in Washington State. From this blog it looks like at one point in the early 2010s they did use apples from China, but a commenter noted that this was done only in years when their apple crop was devastated, and that they’re committed to only USA-grown apples moving forward. They say that their apples come from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California.
4. Florida’s Natural Apple Juice
Florida’s Natural is of course known more for its orange juice, but they also have a very good apple juice that’s “natural”—more the color of cider than of pressed apple juice. It’s not from concentrate and they say that it’s all from fruit grown by US farmers.
This is another one where I’d suggest going to your local supermarket, Instacart, or directly from their store, as Amazon and Walmart seem overrun by third party sellers.
5. Red Jacket Orchards
If I had to choose between Red Jacket and Martinelli’s as my all-time favorite apple juice, the edge would probably go to Red Jacket. I’m putting it last only because it’s going to be hard to get outside of New York. If you can afford it, you can buy them online from their own store for delivery. Otherwise, you’ll probably just have to pick up a case the next time in your in the New York area. Those in the New York area can find it on Amazon Fresh, Fresh Direct, or Instacart.
Red Jacket Orchards is a real orchard by the Finger Lakes in upstate New York by Seneca Lake. While Seneca Apple Juice (also from this area) has long abandoned its roots, Red Jacket Orchards continues to operate its orchards and produce the most amazon cold pressed juice you can buy. It tastes nearly identical to juice that you’d press yourself.
Conclusion
This exercise was particularly eye-opening to me. Despite doing this for a few years now, even I was shocked at the sheet amount of apple juice that China produces. When China got MFN status, it seems that every corporation and even the US government were cheering the fact that Americans would now have cheap apple juice, without one care about how devastating it would be to US farmers and likely to the health of our children and babies in the long run.
Ultimately the power belongs to us, the consumers. Of course, eating fresh, locally grown apples is always going to be the best way to ingest apple juice vs. drinking one cup of apple juice that contains the sugar content of three apples and the fiber content of zero. But if you need an occasional treat, or are feeding an active child, these grown in USA, made in USA apple juices are the best you can buy.
OMG, I didn’t know that!
Where the concentrate is made is not mentioned on the packaging in Europe. I will start to contact producers and check it out.
Thank you very much! This list is helpful for next time I go shopping. I avoid anything Made in China.
Thank you for this article. I saw the once thriving California Grown apple industry shrink in size tremendously over the past 25 years due to the tankers of apple juice concentrate from China. In my peoduce market I never sold Chinese ginger, garlic, apple juice etc. I would buy cases of ginger from Hawaii for 65.00 each OVER Chinese ginger at 18.00 per case. Same with California garlic. When my customers would ask me why mine was more expensive I flat out told them it does not come from china that it is domestic. That was my commitment.
Dan, I believe history will look back at people like you as the ones who saved this country from going over the cliff. In addition to keeping American farmers working, who knows how many countless customers you helped live healthier lives, free from whatever toxins are coming over from the China air and soil.
It’s tragic that so many of our fellow citizens, corporate leaders, and politicians are so quick to stick their heads in the (polluted) sand. But all we can do is keep speaking out, and hopefully more and more people will hear.
Please feel free to post a URL to your produce market or Web site, if you have one! 🙂
Thank you Dan. Very impressed with your knowledge of where our apple juice is made. Thank you again.