By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

Founded in 2012, Fruitive is a vegan fast casual restaurant certified organic by Oregon Tilth. There currently are three restaurants in Virginia and one in Washington, DC. Visit: https://fruitive.com/locations/ for location information.

Fruitive will open its fifth restaurant in Washington, DC’s Dupont Circle in Summer 2018: https://dc.eater.com/2017/9/22/16350232/fruitive-dupont-circleFruitive’s Vegan Menu

Fruitive’s menu features:
• Liquid Meals (smoothies)
• Superberry Bowls
• Toasts
• Waffles
• Sandwiches
• Salads
• Soups
• Wraps
• Collard Tacos
• Cold-Pressed Juices
VRG Note: Menus are subject to seasonal changes.

Fruitive told The VRG that most of their certified USDA Organic fruit and vegetables are locally grown. In their own words:
“Fruitive currently sources about 60% of its produce from small organic farms in the Chesapeake Bay bioregion. Ingredients are sourced from local growers from small one-person operations to larger growing co-ops like Tuscaroroa Organic Growers Co-op.” http://www.tog.coop/

Complete ingredient information for all menu items is displayed on the ingredients page. https://fruitive.com/ingredients

To display the ingredient information for each menu option, first click on menu type (such as “salads”) found at the top of the page under the Fruitive Health Benefits heading. The ingredient statement placed on the right appears on the next screen.

At the bottom of this ingredients page appears a helpful Ingredient Index arranged by category such as vegetables, nuts, and spices. Included is nutritional information, health benefits, and food trivia about each ingredient.

Fruitive’s Ingredients
The VRG asked Fruitive’s founder, Greg Rozeboom, about ingredients in its menu items. Here is our Q&A exchange:

VRG: Are all of your ingredients 100% USDA Organic?
Fruitive: We strive to source as many quality organic ingredients that we can. However any non-organic ingredients we use will be listed on our Organic Daily List, which is located at https://fruitive.com/organicdaily

VRG: Do you add sugar to any of your plant milks?
Fruitive: We do not add any sugar to our plant-based milks.



VRG: When you refer to your milks as “house-made” do you mean that you start by grinding up the nuts and adding water?
Fruitive: Yes, our house-made milks are made by grinding up the nuts and adding water.

VRG: Do you add anything else?
Fruitive: Our milks are simply made with nuts or coconut that are ground, soaked, and blended into alkaline water, with a touch of sea salt.



VRG: Which defoamer is used in your maple syrup?
Fruitive: We source our maple syrup from Bascom Maple Farms, which uses a “high-awake ultra-refined organic sunflower seed oil.” 



VRG: Is the sugar on the candied pecans 100% USDA Organic?

Fruitive: We use coconut sugar from Earth Circle Organics that is 95% Organic, certified by Organic Certifiers.



VRG: Is the Flax & Spelt Bread all-vegetable? Are there any dough conditioners such as L-cysteine? Is there any added sugar?
Fruitive: The flax and spelt bread is 100% vegan as is everything on the menu. The ingredients are: spelt, flax seeds, raisins, gluten, yeast, and unrefined salt. There are no dough conditioners…There is no added sugar in the bread.

VRG: Is there any added sugar in the peanut or almond butter?

Fruitive: We do not add any sugar to our peanut or almond butter, which are both house- made with just ground almonds and peanuts.



VRG: Is the Basil Pesto Mayo eggless?
Fruitive: The Basil Pesto Mayo is eggless, and made with a canola oil-based mayo.



VRG: Are the Buckwheat Waffles all-vegetable? Are they made with L-cysteine?
Fruitive: Our Buckwheat Waffles are made from a house-made mix of buckwheat and gluten-free flours that are all-vegetable and do not contain any dough conditioners.

VRG: Are the coconut flakes unsweetened?
Fruitive: Our coconut flakes and coconut shreds are both unsweetened.



VRG: Is the whole wheat tortilla all-vegetable? Does it contain any dough conditioners such as L-cysteine or any added sugar?
Fruitive: It is vegan. There is no L-cysteine and no added sugar.

VRG: Are the spicy aioli and sriracha aiola sauces all-vegetable?
Fruitive: They are the same dressing, and both are all-vegetable, using canola oil-based mayo.

VRG: Are the hummus (original and spicy), basil vinaigrette and ranch dressing all-vegetable? Do they contain any added sugar?
Fruitive: All of these dressings and spreads are all-vegetable and none have added sugar.



VRG: Is the Herb Mayo eggless?
Fruitive: The Herb Mayo is eggless and canola oil-based.



VRG: Do the carrot ginger dressing and caramelized onions contain any added sugar?
Fruitive: Neither of these have any added sugar.

VRG: Are the croutons dairyless?
Fruitive: The croutons are milkless, with no added sugar, made using the One Degree Flax Spelt Bread we use for our sandwiches.

VRG: Is Honey in ANY of the menu items?
Fruitive: Fruitive doesn’t use honey.

Fruitive’s House-Made, Cold-Pressed Juices and Juice Packs
On its website, visitors may pre-order and purchase cold-pressed juice packs that customers must pick up at their local Fruitive restaurant. See: https://fruitive.com/juice-packs/

On its juicing page, https://fruitive.com/juicing-101, it states that “there are approximately 6 to 9 pounds of produce in each Fruitive 6 pack, which is the equivalent of 6 to 9 large salads. We use heaping amounts of kale, spinach, and other nutrient-dense ingredients without the use of excessive fillers. We…never add water to our juices…”

Here are responses to our questions regarding Fruitive’s liquid meals and juices:

VRG: How are liquid meals served?
Fruitive: Liquid Meals (smoothies) are served in Fabri-Kal® Greenware® compostable cups, made from clear PLA corn-derived plastic. [VRG Note: For more information on polylactic acid (PLA) see http://www.fabri-kal.com/product-solutions/greenware-faq/]

VRG: How are juices served?
Fruitive: Juices (carry out or dine in) are all in glass 8 and 16 oz. bottles. Fruitive offers a discount off the next juice purchased if guests return the glass bottle. The glassware is essentially Mason jars with aluminum covers that screw on.

VRG: Can guests purchase juices from the website and have them home-delivered?
Fruitive: The juices are only available at Fruitive restaurants, not online and not at retailers. The FDA doesn’t allow unpasteurized or non-HPP juices to be sold wholesale. [VRG Note: “HPP” is an acronym for “high pressure processing.” For more information on this technique see http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/citrus15/presentations/4_Thurs%20PM%20PDF/0130%20RAGHUBWEER%20PDF.pdf]

VRG: How are the juice packs sold?
Fruitive: Pre-ordered juice packs are in glass. The juice pack boxes are made from compostable cardboard.

Fruitive’s Use of Produce Scraps and Juice Pulp
Fruitive said:
“Fruitive uses all of their food scraps (the ends of onions, the skin of butternut squash, carrot greens, broccoli stalks, mushroom stems, kale stems, etc.) and a lot of their juice pulp in their house-made vegetable stock. After making the stock and straining out the scraps, Fruitive will sometimes take the scraps to a local community garden to be used for compost.

Unused produce and dry goods are donated to Food Not Bombs, a local group fighting homeless hunger. http://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/index.php

From juice pulp from over a dozen fruits and vegetables, Fruitive dehydrates and powders different pulps to use as spices in recipes. Turmeric, ginger, celery, parsley, and cilantro pulp all make great spice powders and taste better than store-bought powders because they are so fresh.

Examples of carrot food waster use:
-Lacto-fermentation to create probiotic carrot slaw
-Mixing with fresh, locally grown napa cabbage and daikon radishes to make kimchi
-Using the excess kraut brine, adding it to surplus juice that would otherwise get tossed, and making probiotic beverages.
-Fruitive has recently created a Portobello BBQ sandwich, pulling unused portobello mushrooms stems into BBQ to look and taste just like pulled pork.”

The contents of this posting, our website and our other publications, including Vegetarian Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company statements. It is impossible to be 100% sure about a statement, info can change, people have different views, and mistakes can be made. Please use your best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. To be sure, do further research or confirmation on your own.

For information about vegan and vegetarian restaurants around the USA and Canada, see http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php