Fruit Purees
Completeness scorecard
Deterministic gap audit — no score is composite, no cell is LLM-judged. Each chip is re-derivable by re-running tools/evidence/build-ingredient-scorecard.mjs. review: residuals and missing data are worked autonomously via data/evidence/ingredient-scorecard-review-flags.csv and wiki/completeness-gaps.md.
| Dimension | Status | What’s there (auditable counts) | What’s missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1 Analyte coverage (tier: unset) | GAP | 3/10 HMTc analytes, total n=13 | only 3/10 analytes have evidence |
| D2 Regional coverage | OK | 3 jurisdictions, top UK 50% | — |
| D3 Anthropogenic evidence | GAP | 1 drinking-water; no supply-chain link | link a supply-chain/ hub page |
| D4 Background mechanism | GAP | section present, 0 drivers, 1 upstream source(s) | drivers[] empty |
| D5 Pooling depth | THIN | Pb THIN, Cd THIN, tAs POOLABLE | Pb: THIN; Cd: THIN |
| D6 Speciation | OK | iAs, tHg, tAs declared | — |
| D7 Basis declaration | GAP | 0/10 populated cells declare a basis token | 10 populated cell(s) lack a basis token: Pb, Cd, iAs, tHg, Ni, Al, Cr, Sn, tAs, U |
| D8 Provenance integrity | GAP | 2 claims checked, 2 supported; 3 citations, 0 orphan, 3 foreign | 3 foreign citation(s) not naming fruit-purees: collado-lopez2025-heavy-metals-baby-food-formula, houlihan2019-hbbf-whats-in-baby-food, codex-cxs-193-1995 |
| D9 Mitigation | GAP | 0 cited lever(s), 6 mitigation/ link(s) | section present but no source-cited lever |
| D10 Regulatory coverage | OK | 3 rule link(s), 1 metal(s) covered | unmapped analytes: Cd, tAs |
| D11 Standards-readiness | NOT-READY | priority: Pb, Cd, tAs; pairing 0 paired, 3 single, 0 unpaired | Pb: THIN; Cd: THIN; basis: 10 populated cell(s) lack a basis token: Pb, Cd, iAs, tHg, Ni, Al, Cr, Sn, tAs, U; consumption tier unset (depth bar uncheckable) |
| Principle balance | OK | consumer-protection 0.50, contamination-reduction 0.00, brand-value 0.00, legal-defensibility 0.50, scale 0.25 | — |
This is a structural ingredient node created so product pages can link to a real wiki target. Occurrence values remain pending until a source is promoted for this ingredient.
Heavy metal contamination profile
Per-analyte snapshot derived from the machine-readable contamination_profile in the frontmatter above. data gap indicates the literature has been reviewed for this commodity-analyte combination and no usable occurrence data was found (a finding, not a placeholder). The Key sources column shows the top 2-3 contributing sources by year and sample size, with numbered wikilink aliases.
| Analyte | Coverage | Typical (ppb) | p95 (ppb) | Confidence | Key sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pb | n=3 | 0.036–4.02 | 5.24 | low | — |
| Cd | n=5 | 0–2.81 | 3.95 | low | — |
| iAs | data gap | — | — | — | — |
| tAs | n=5 | 0.057–5 | 5 | medium | — |
| tHg | data gap | — | — | — | — |
| Ni | data gap | — | — | — | — |
| Al | data gap | — | — | — | — |
| Cr | data gap | — | — | — | — |
| Sn | data gap | — | — | — | — |
| U | data gap | — | — | — | — |
Routing
This node is linked from fruit-purees.
Contamination Profile State
The machine-readable contamination profile is pending. Ingredient-level values belong here once parsed; finished-product values belong on the relevant product-category page.
Sources
Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.
| # | Citation | Year | Type | Used on this page for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Napier et al. 2024. Childhood Lead Exposure Linked to Apple Cinnamon Fruit Puree Pouches — North Carolina, June 2023–January 2024, MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report | 2024 | Agency report | WanaBana apple-cinnamon fruit puree pouch Pb outbreak from intentional Ecuadorian cinnamon adulteration with finished product at 1.9–3.0 ppm Pb |
| 2 | UK Committee on Toxicity 2013. Statement on the potential risks from aluminium in the infant diet, Committee on Toxicity (COT), Statement 2013/01, June 2013 | 2013 | Government report | UK Al occurrence in Synthesis of UK Drinking Water Inspectorate 2011 tap-water survey (n=42,400 England/Wales, n=1,730 Northern Ireland, n=5,020 Scotland); FSA 2006… |
Why this commodity accumulates heavy metals
Fruit purees inherit heavy metals from the source fruit (see fruits and per-fruit pages like apple, banana, peach, pear, mango). The pureeing process does not change total source-fruit metal load; it homogenizes the source fruit into a smooth texture suitable for infant feeding. Apple, pear, and banana are the most common infant-fruit-puree ingredients in commercial Cat 1 product lines; berry purees and mango/peach purees are common premium variants.
The dominant metal-load contributor in fruit purees is Pb from soil-uptake and atmospheric-deposition pathways at the source orchard. Apple specifically carries a legacy iAs concern from historic lead-arsenate-pesticide orchards (though the iAs in apple is generally lower than in apple juice because juicing concentrates the metal); see apple. Cd in fruit purees is generally low.
The HMTc panel concerns for fruit purees are dominantly Pb, with iAs as a secondary concern for apple-containing products and Cd as a minor concern.
Ranges by source, region, and variety
Fruit puree metal load tracks the source fruit. Apple purees carry the highest Pb among common fruit-puree species, particularly apples from regions with historic lead-arsenate pesticide use. Pear purees from cleaner orchards carry lower Pb. Banana purees (from tropical-soil-grown bananas in Central and South America) carry low Pb across the board. Peach and apricot purees can carry trace Cd from stone-fruit-specific pathways.
Collado-Lopez 2025 is the broad baby-food + fruit puree synthesis source documenting Spanish-market fruit baby food. Houlihan 2019 (HBBF) characterized US-market baby food including fruit purees.
Processing effects
Fruit puree processing (washing, peeling, coring, pureeing, heat treatment for shelf-stability, pH adjustment, packaging) does not change total source-fruit metal content meaningfully. Washing and peeling at the manufacturer stage remove surface-deposited Pb (relevant for tree fruits grown in atmospheric-Pb regions). Heat treatment for retort sterilization or aseptic packaging does not change panel metals.
Fortification additives (vitamin C, citric acid, mineral additives) can contribute trace metals at parts-per-billion levels depending on supplier specification.
Ingredient-derivative risk
Fruit purees are themselves finished retail products targeting infant and toddler markets. Concentrated fruit puree (used as flavor or color in compounded products) carries elevated per-mass metal because water has been removed.
Fruit-puree-based finished products (fruit pouches, fruit-and-veggie pouches, fruit-and-yogurt combinations) inherit the source-fruit-puree profile proportional to recipe fraction.
Mitigation options
Sourcing levers (supply-chain-screening) are the dominant intervention. Single-origin sourcing from documented low-Pb production regions, fruit-supplier soil-Pb verification (especially for apples and pears from legacy-orchard regions), and avoidance of lead-arsenate-history orchards.
Agronomic levers (agronomic) apply at the orchard level (see fruits).
Processing levers (processing) include washing and peeling at the manufacturer stage, which removes surface-deposited Pb effectively.
Formulation levers (formulation) include fruit-species substitution (substituting banana or pear puree for apple puree reduces Pb), single-fruit vs mixed-fruit formulation, and added-ingredient minimization.
Testing and QC levers (testing-and-qc) include lot-level Pb testing on finished fruit purees, particularly for apple-containing products targeted at infants. See icp-ms.
Packaging and storage levers (packaging-and-storage) include jar-and-foil-cap specification, pouch-material specification, and food-contact-substance compliance.
Regulatory limits that apply
- fda2025-lead-processed-baby-foods — FDA Closer to Zero Pb action level for processed baby foods covers fruit purees at 10 ppb Pb.
- eu-2023-915 — EU Reg. 2023/915 sets binding maximum levels for Pb and Cd in infant-and-young-child fruit-based foods.
- Codex CXS 193-1995 — Codex MLs apply.
- California Prop 65 (california-prop65) Pb MADL applied to fruit purees sold in California; the serving-based screen is stringent for infant-targeted products.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| b0f3d38 | 2026-06-12 | batch | corpus rescreen b04 old terminal skips |