Supplier and Distributor

FTNF Fruit Essence

Brothers International is your trusted source for 100% natural, From The Named Fruit (FTNF) water-phase essences for your production needs. From Apple and Orange to Peach, Grape, and Passionfruit; all captured during gentle juice concentration to deliver the highly volatile, fresh-picked top-notes that bring beverages and flavor systems to life.

Brothers International is proud to offer various fruit juices and concentrates as USDA Organic certified.

Fruit Essences can be supplied as organic upon request

RTD Beverage Formulation

Fruit essences are the ideal aromatic solution for crystal-clear beverages, including sparkling waters, hard seltzers, and clear functional drinks. Because they are 100% water-soluble, they deliver vibrant, fresh fruit aromas without causing cloudiness, ring formation, or oil separation in the bottle.

Juice Reconstitution

When reconstituted juice concentrates lose their fresh aroma top-notes due to thermal evaporation, fruit essences are added back to restore the original “just-squeezed” aromatic profile. They allow beverage formulators to maintain batch-to-batch consistency and authentic sensory quality year-round.

Alcoholic Beverages & Craft Spirits

Distillers, craft brewers, and RTD cocktail formulators use fruit essences to impart clean, bright fruit top-notes without adding sugars, calories, or turbidity. Their high purity also makes them ideal for TTB-drawback eligible alcoholic beverage formulations.

Restoring Fresh Top-Notes and

Fruit Essence Aroma

During the standard juice concentration process, thermal evaporation causes delicate, volatile aroma molecules to flash off. Aroma Recovery Units (ARUs) capture these water-vapor compounds before they are lost, condensing them into highly concentrated, pure water-phase essences.

By understanding how fruit essences complement juice concentrates and water bases, R&D teams can restore true “freshly picked” character to their formulations.

  • 100% Water-Soluble Clarity: Unlike peel oils or essential oils, water-phase fruit essences mix seamlessly into water bases. They provide intense aromatic impact while maintaining total clarity and stability in liquid applications.

  • Micro-Dosage Cost Efficiency: Fruit essences are exceptionally potent. Used at fractions of a percent, a tiny injection of high-fold essence drastically elevates the sensory profile of a beverage without significantly impacting cost-per-liter.

  • 100% FTNF Clean-Label Status: Because our essences are extracted strictly from the named fruit during juicing, they carry 100% From The Named Fruit (FTNF) status, allowing for clean, natural ingredient labeling that modern consumers trust.

Available now, blackberry juice concentrate, blackberry essences, blackberry IQF, blackberry NFC juice, blackberry puree.
Brothers International is your supplier for cranberry NFC juice, cranberry juice concentrate and other cranberry ingredients and products.
Decades of Experience in

Fit For Purpose Sourcing

Not every application demands the same volatile profile or concentration fold; a high-proof spirit, an ultra-clear sparkling water, and a high-volume juice blend each require specific volatile fractions and solubility traits.

Rather than offering a standard off-the-shelf product, our global sourcing network aligns origin, fruit variety, and essence recovery specifications with your exact product requirements.

Whether you need a crisp, high-aldehyde Apple essence to brighten a juice blend, or a tropical Passionfruit essence to anchor a premium beverage line, we match the origin and extraction parameters to your objective. We deliver fruit essences that fit your exact manufacturing needs.

  • Zero Thermal Degradation: Our essence recovery systems operate under vacuum at low temperatures, preserving delicate esters, aldehydes, and ketones that would otherwise be destroyed by high heat.

  • True-to-Fruit Botanical Mirror: The captured essence is an exact aromatic footprint of the ripe fruit’s natural juice vapor, delivering the authentic aroma consumers expect from premium products.

Uncompromising Purity and Integrity

FTNF Fruit Essence Supplier

As international fruit experts, we’ve spent the last 25 years supplying our customers with everything from Fruit Essences to Juice Concentrates and IQF parts. The purity of our aqueous essences makes them essential for flavor houses, beverage compounders, and food manufacturers worldwide.

  • 100% Solvent-Free & Natural: Our recovery process utilizes zero chemical solvents, synthetic additives, or alcohol carriers—just pure, natural water-phase fruit volatiles.

  • Seamless Formulating: Compatible with standard flavor-dosing systems, our essences blend effortlessly into liquid production lines without special emulsifiers.

Global Sourcing & Supply Chain Resiliency:
Sourcing premium, true-to-nature fruit essences requires an integrated agricultural footprint aligned with primary industrial juice concentration infrastructure. Because aqueous fruit essences are captured directly from juice vapors via Aroma Recovery Units (ARUs) during low-temperature vacuum evaporation, high-quality essence production cannot occur in isolation—it must take place at origin within hours of primary fruit milling and pressing. Brothers International maintains strategic partnerships with world-class fruit processing facilities across premier global growing corridors.

Managing volatile aqueous essences across international logistics routes demands specialized cold-chain and packaging protocols. Aqueous fruit essences consist of delicate, low-boiling volatile organic compounds suspended in a pure water phase with endogenous fruit ethanol. If exposed to elevated temperatures or oxygen, these light molecules can quickly flash off or oxidize, resulting in a flat or stale sensory profile. Through multi-quarter forward volume contracting, we negotiate secure shipping allocations, shielding commercial beverage compounders, craft distillers, and flavor houses from volatile freight tariffs and supply shortages.

To insulate manufacturing schedules against agricultural seasonality and transatlantic transit bottlenecks, Brothers International maintains strategic buffer inventories of high-fold essences across our nationwide refrigerated warehousing network in North America. By strategically positioning supply, we eliminate long overseas shipping lead times, enabling R&D compounders and commercial bottling plants to align delivery schedules with fluctuating packaging runs, seasonal SKU rollouts, and unexpected consumer demand surges.

Quality Assurance & Technical Compliance:
Every production lot of aqueous fruit essence distributed by Brothers International undergoes rigorous analytical and chromatographic profiling to guarantee sensory fidelity and batch-to-batch repeatability on automated production lines. Because essences are un-concentrated in sugar and measured by volatile potency rather than Brix, our quality assurance protocols center on high-resolution Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and Gas Chromatography–Flame Ionization Detection (GC-FID).

Purity, clean-label compliance, and the total absence of adulterants are strictly validated. Brothers International guarantees that every essence is 100% From The Named Fruit (FTNF), extracted purely through physical condensation and fractional vacuum distillation without the addition of synthetic aroma chemicals, nature-identical isolates, propylene glycol, or artificial preservatives. Because light fruit volatiles concentrate alongside naturally synthesized fruit ethanol during the distillation process, our laboratories precisely standardize the endogenous alcohol by volume. For clear beverages and hard seltzers, every batch is verified for complete water solubility and optical clarity , ensuring the essence will never form an oily meniscus ring or cause phase separation in clear bottled products.

Global food safety and multi-agency regulatory compliance are central to our technical documentation. Every processing facility in our supplier network operates under Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) benchmarks, including SQF, BRCGS, or FSSC 22000. For alcoholic beverage manufacturers, craft breweries, and commercial distilleries, we supply complete Flavor Ingredient Data Sheets (FIDS) and formula compliance papers to streamline TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) approvals and support drawback tax recovery. Every shipment arrives with a comprehensive technical documentation packet, including lot-specific Certificates of Analysis (COA) specifying volatile chemical profiles, specific gravity, refractive index, microbial validation confirming the absence of yeasts, molds, and pathogens, Kosher and Halal certifications, Non-GMO Project Verification, and USDA National Organic Program (NOP) transaction paperwork.

Premium Fruit Essence Used to Optimize Production

Fruit Essences F.A.Q.

Crystal-Clear RTD Beverages & Seltzers:
Aqueous fruit essence is the primary aromatic driver for flavored sparkling waters, premium hard seltzers, clear botanical tonics, and functional waters. Because essences contain zero sugars, carbohydrates, calories, or turbidity, they impart vibrant aroma and clean fruit character while maintaining total liquid clarity.

Juice Reconstitution & Essence Add-Back:
During high-Brix vacuum concentration of fruit juices (65° to 70° Brix), delicate fresh aromatics flash off. When commercial bottlers reconstitute bulk concentrate with water on high-speed lines, the juice can taste flat or thermally processed. Micro-dosing fruit essence back into the mixing tank (Essence Add-Back) restores the volatile top notes, matching the sensory profile of freshly pressed NFC juice.

Craft Brewing, Ciders & Distilling:

  • Dry Flavoring in Beer & Hard Ciders: Traditional fruit purees introduce fermentable sugars that alter final gravity and alcohol content. Adding fruit essences on the cold side (bright beer tank) delivers fresh fruit aromatics to IPAs, wheat beers, and hard ciders without secondary fermentation, yeast refermentation, or filter-fouling pulp.

  • Distilled Spirits & Non-Alcoholic RTDs: Formulates flavored vodkas, dry gins, botanical aperitifs, and 0.0% ABV zero-proof spirits with natural aroma and zero sugar.

Confectionery, Dairy & Flavor Compounding:

  • Pectin Gummies & Hard Candies: Added at the finishing stage of candy cooking to impart authentic aroma without thinning pectin gels or adding excess moisture.

  • Flavor Houses: Used as high-impact FTNF natural building blocks for proprietary natural flavor compounding, beverage emulsions, and syrup systems.

With over 20 different fruit and vegetable ingredients available as fruit essence, our team is able to provide nearly any variation required for your food and beverage manufacturing. The table below has examples that represent a fraction of our current capabilities. Can’t find what you’re looking for? We can help you source it.

Example Essences Standard Concentration Dominant Volatile Compounds Natural Alcohol (% ABV) Sensory Profile & Ideal Applications
Apple Essence (FTNF)
(Malus domestica)		 150-Fold to 250-Fold Hexyl acetate, trans-2-hexenal, ethyl butyrate, acetaldehyde 2.0% – 8.0% ABV
(Endogenous)		 Crisp Ripe Orchard Character. Delivers green-apple snap and sweet skin aromatics. The benchmark for juice concentrate reconstitution, hard ciders, and clear seltzers.
Concord / Red Grape Essence
(Vitis labrusca / vinifera)		 100-Fold to 200-Fold Methyl anthranilate, ethyl acetate, ethyl butyrate 3.0% – 10.0% ABV
(Endogenous)		 Jammy, Deep Grape Aroma. Rich foxy-grape top notes with wine-like complexity. Essential for craft sodas, confectionery gummies, and grape juice add-back.
Peach / Apricot Essence
(Prunus persica / armeniaca)		 150-Fold to 250-Fold Gamma-decalactone, benzaldehyde, linalool, hexyl acetate 2.0% – 6.0% ABV
(Endogenous)		 Succulent Flesh & Floral Skin. Authentic tree-ripened peach aroma without candied off-notes. Formulated in RTD iced teas, sparkling waters, and botanical gins.
Red Raspberry Essence
(Rubus idaeus)		 150-Fold to 250-Fold Alpha/beta-ionone, raspberry ketone, ethyl hexanoate 3.0% – 9.0% ABV
(Endogenous)		 Fresh-Picked Berry Tartness. Bright seed-and-pulp floral notes. Widely used in flavored seltzers, clear functional drinks, craft sour beers, and dairy aromatics.
Tart / Sweet Cherry Essence
(Prunus cerasus / avium)		 100-Fold to 200-Fold Benzaldehyde, benzyl alcohol, eugenol, ethyl butyrate 2.0% – 7.0% ABV
(Endogenous)		 Crisp Stone-Fruit & Pucker. Balances light almond notes with tangy fruit aromas. Essential for sleep recovery tonics, cherry craft sodas, and cordials.
Passion Fruit / Tropical Essence
(Passiflora edulis)		 100-Fold to 200-Fold Ethyl butyrate, ethyl hexanoate, volatile sulfur thiols 4.0% – 12.0% ABV
(Endogenous)		 High-Impact Tropical Intensity. Pungent exotic top notes. Used in tropical seltzers, energy drinks, tiki cocktails, and high-end non-alcoholic aperitifs.

  • Water-Phase Fruit Essence (Aqueous Aroma): Captured via fractional distillation of fruit juice vapors during vacuum evaporation. It is 100% water-soluble and contains light volatile organic compounds (esters, aldehydes, ketones). It blends into aqueous systems without clouding, ringing, or separation.

  • Cold-Pressed Essential Oil (Peel Oil): Mechanically extracted from fruit skins (such as orange, lemon, or grapefruit flavedo). It is lipophilic (oil-soluble), dominated by heavy monoterpenes, and requires synthetic emulsifiers, weighting agents, or high-proof ethanol to stay suspended in water bases.

  • Artificial Flavor: Synthesized chemically from petroleum or chemical feedstocks. While consistent, it lacks the complex trace botanical nuances of real fruit and requires synthetic chemical declarations on consumer packaging.

The “Fold” rating quantifies the concentration ratio of the essence relative to the original single-strength juice feedstock. For example, a 200-Fold Strawberry Essence indicates that 1 kilogram of aqueous essence holds the volatile aromatic potency of 200 kilograms of raw strawberry juice. Because of this high concentration factor, industrial usage rates are low:

  • Typical Beverage Dosing Range: 0.05% to 0.30% by weight (0.5 kg to 3.0 kg of essence per 1,000 kg of finished liquid).

  • Formulation Guideline: For light flavored sparkling waters, begin benchtop titration at 0.05% (500 ppm). For high-proof spirits or heavily sweetened beverages requiring pronounced aromatic projection, dose between 0.15% and 0.30%.

FTNF stands for From The Named Fruit. It certifies that 100% of the aromatic molecules in the container were recovered directly and exclusively from the named botanical fruit (e.g., 100% Raspberry Essence derived entirely from Rubus idaeus). Under U.S. FDA 21 CFR § 101.22(i)(1), products flavored exclusively with FTNF essences qualify for premium clean-label ingredient declarations, such as “Natural [Fruit] Flavor” or “[Fruit] Essence,” without requiring qualifying phrases like “WONF” (With Other Natural Flavors) or “Artificially Flavored.”

Clear beverages present two formulation challenges: visual clarity and shelf stability. Oil-phase flavorings (such as citrus peel oils or oil-soluble extracts) cause cloudiness or droplet coalescence, creating an unappealing white “essential oil ring” at the liquid meniscus in the neck of glass bottles or clear cans. Because water-phase fruit essences are completely hydrophilic, they dissolve uniformly at the molecular level, ensuring crystal clarity, zero phase separation, and zero sediment dropout across long commercial shelf lives.

During industrial juice concentration (evaporating single-strength juice up to 65°+ Brix), low-boiling volatile esters flash off in the vacuum chamber. Reconstituted juice made strictly from water and concentrate can exhibit a cooked, flat sensory profile. In modern juice processing, the volatile vapors stripped during concentration are recovered as high-fold aqueous essence and dosed back into the concentrated juice before packaging, or added during final blending at the bottling plant. Reintroducing these native top notes restores the fresh-pressed aromatic profile of single-strength NFC juice while retaining concentrate shipping economics.

During fruit maturation and processing, trace amounts of natural ethyl alcohol form in the fruit and concentrate in the ARU distillation column alongside other volatile compounds. Standard high-fold fruit essences naturally contain 1% to 15% naturally occurring ethyl alcohol by volume (ABV):

  • Alcoholic Beverages & TTB Drawback: For breweries, wineries, and distilleries, this endogenous alcohol poses no regulatory obstacle. Brothers International provides full TTB Flavor Ingredient Data Sheets (FIDS) to support federal formula approval and drawback tax recovery.

  • Non-Alcoholic (0.0% ABV) Applications: When dosed at standard beverage usage rates (e.g., 0.10%), a 10% ABV essence contributes only 0.01% alcohol to the finished beverage—well below the 0.5% ABV federal threshold for non-alcoholic foods. For formulations requiring strictly 0.00% ABV claims, de-alcoholized aqueous essences are available upon request.

Volatile organic compounds are sensitive to evaporation, light exposure, and ambient temperature:

  • Temperature Control: Unopened drums and carboys must be stored in temperature-controlled chilled storage (0°C to 4°C / 32°F to 40°F). Freezing is not required and can cause volatile stratification.

  • Airtight Packaging & Minimal Headspace: Essences should remain sealed in food-grade, high-barrier containers (stainless-steel drums, fluorinated HDPE carboys, or specialty barrier-lined containers). Once opened, headspace should be purged with inert gas (nitrogen or argon) to prevent volatile aromatic loss.

  • Shelf Life: Properly chilled, unopened aqueous fruit essences maintain aromatic stability for 12 to 18 months from the distillation date.

Every beverage and food formulation requires precise technical parameters to perform consistently on automated production lines. Beyond standard ingredient delivery, Brothers International supports your R&D and QA teams with comprehensive technical documentation and specification matching. We provide batch-specific Certificates of Analysis (COA), detailed product specification sheets, allergen statements, Non-GMO declarations, and heavy metal/pesticide testing.

Whether your product requires a specific pH range, custom titratable acidity, precise color intensity, or tailored seed filtration (down to specific mesh screen sizes), our technical specialists collaborate directly with your formulators to match your operational requirements. To accelerate your product development cycle, we maintain a rapid-ship sample program for bench testing and pilot-scale trials.

Navigating global fruit commodity markets requires proactive supply chain management and real-time market intelligence. Seasonal weather anomalies, shifting freight rates, and harvest yield fluctuations can impact fruit essence ingredient pricing and availability. Brothers International acts as a strategic procurement partner, offering market forecasts, crop reports, and flexible contracting structures—including multi-quarter forward contracts to lock in budget stability, as well as spot-market sourcing to fill unexpected inventory gaps.

As direct importers, we handle the complexities of international trade so you don’t have to. Our logistics team manages C-TPAT supply chain security, USDA/FDA import clearances, and customs brokerage to eliminate port delays. Backed by strict temperature-monitored cold-chain logistics, we ensure your frozen strawberry concentrates, purees, and essences maintain complete color, flavor, and microbial integrity from origin to your facility floor.