Review: Truronia Aronia Berry Juice

Posted: Oct 16, 2018 at 2:10 PM (Last Updated: Oct 16, 2018 at 3:29 PM)

Covers Products: Organic Aronia Berry, Organic Pineapple Aronia Berry, Organic Coconut Aronia Berry, Organic Mango Aronia Berry

Truronia is a line of USDA Organic HPP juices that feature aronia berry as its key ingredient. The product line currently includes four single serve 100 percent juice varieties including Original, Mango, Coconut, and Pineapple. They also offer a 24.5oz multi-serve made with 100 percent aronia berry juice.

As is often the case with products that use strong berry or superfruit ingredients, all of the flavors more or less have the same core flavors and have the same colored liquid. That’s not to say that there aren’t some differences in the flavors (mango, for example, is both more viscous and has a nice tropical flavor to it), but the tart and moderately sweet aronia berry flavor is there throughout all three. Also present is apple juice, which you can taste and is a key part of the sweetness of the drink.

Speaking of sweetness, we feel as though these drinks are a bit too sweet in that they have 21-31g of sugar per bottle, depending on the SKU. Yes, the sugar comes from juice, but we think that the sweetness level is going to be a bit tough for many consumers. Plus, the drinks are somewhat viscous to varying degrees, depending on the flavor;the Mango variety, for example, has a consistency on par with a smoothie.

While we think that they have done a nice job as far as the pairing of fruit flavors is concerned, we feel as they they need some less viscous and lighter bodied (and lower calorie) options in the lineup. As the current lineup stands, we think the formulations are too rich and too sweet for regular consumption. Shifting the lineup to products that are lighter would not only help the calories and sugar content, but it would also help Truronia build a base of consumers beyond the niche of hardcore aronia juice drinkers.

Packaging is a 10 oz slim plastic bottle -- the same kind used by other brands in the super premium and HPP juice space. This seems like a fine package for this product and, with some adjustments to the flavor, we think it could present a reasonable portion size. However, the arrangement of the label could use some improvement. Specifically, we find the vertical hand drawn logo to be somewhat difficult to read, especially with the umlaut and accent color on the “u” and the fact that half of the logo is written in cursive.

Beyond that, we think the positioning of aronia berry as “the new superfruit” is going to be pretty challenging. Consumers (and the industry) have been bombarded with various superfruits and few have managed to really gain traction. There’s nothing about the Truronia lineup that says that it will be able to cut through this clutter with the current approach.

Overall, Truronia is a nice product that’s certainly of high quality. However, there are several items that we think will limit this product’s potential and ability to break out from the clutter and baggage of the HPP juice set.


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