Just when you thought there were no more ways to innovate with shelf-stable fruit cups, Dole Packaged Foods LLC, Westlake Village, Calif., shows us differently. The company is now using slightly sweetened coconut water as the carrier for its diced fruit in its new Dole Coconut Water line.
Once shunned for its high saturated fatty acid content, coconut in its many forms is now viewed as a healthy food ingredient. Coconut ingredients provide potassium, magnesium and other minerals, along with tropical flavor. The new fruit cups come in three varieties: peach and mango; pineapple and mandarin orange; and pineapple, peach and mango. Each 4-oz cup contains 60 calories and 12-13g sugar, of which 3-4g are added sugars. The rest of the sugar is inherent to the fruit ingredients.
This latest innovation joins Dole Mixations, which debuted about a year ago. These fruit fusions are imaginative combinations of smooth fruit sauces and juicy chunks of real fruit in four flavor pairings: apple-strawberry sauce with diced apple, pineapple-mango sauce with pineapple pieces, peach-apple sauce with pineapple pieces and apple-raspberry sauce with diced apple.
