Frutivo, the innovative citrus juice brand born in Romania, has won the Grand Gold Quality Award at the Monde Selection Quality Awards 2026, in the Food category, for its product Frutivo 100% Pure Squeezed Lemon Juice.
Frutivo is the only European brand producing organic cold-extracted citrus juice in individual portions, a positioning that gives it a distinct role in a category built around quality, consistency and waste-free use. The product is made without additives, without pasteurization and is never made from concentrate.
The Grand Gold distinction is the highest recognition awarded by Monde Selection and is granted to products that obtain a final score between 90% and 100% following the evaluation process.
For Frutivo, the award confirms both the taste and the overall quality of the product.
After 12 years of development, Frutivo strengthens its position as a category leader through an international validation that confirms what the brand has pursued from the very beginning: consistent quality, clean taste and simple use.
Monde Selection does not operate as a classic competition in which products are compared with one another and ranked first or second. Each product is evaluated individually, based on its own set of criteria, adapted to the category it belongs to.
For food products, the evaluation includes appearance, aroma, taste, texture, final sensation after consumption, ingredients, labelling, packaging, compliance and the overall consumer experience.
In practice, the Grand Gold Quality Award validates the product from a complete perspective, from the quality of the ingredients to the way the product is ultimately used.
“Frutivo is a brand built around a simple concept with multiple uses: freshly squeezed citrus juice, cold-extracted, quickly frozen and portioned, without additives, without pasteurization and never made from concentrate. We have organic single-serve products made from organic citrus from Sicily, as well as products dedicated to HoReCa, where we use conventional lemons, with the same focus on taste, consistency and efficient use,” said Radu Necșulescu, founder of Frutivo.
The idea behind Frutivo came from a real need observed on the Romanian market. In his conversations with HoReCa clients, Radu Necșulescu repeatedly noticed the same problem. Lemon was an essential ingredient for restaurants and bars, but it was difficult to control. Taste varied from one fruit to another, yield was unpredictable, preparation time was high, and waste became inevitable.
This is how Frutivo was created, a product built around the idea of “freshly squeezed, freshly frozen”, preserving citrus juice in a practical, portioned and easy-to-use format.
“Frutivo was born from a very concrete need. I saw in HoReCa how difficult it was to work consistently with an ingredient that seems simple: lemon. Sometimes it was too acidic, sometimes too weak, sometimes it produced too little juice, and other times it generated a lot of waste. We wanted to build a clean, easy-to-use and fair solution for the client. This is how the idea emerged to bring freshly squeezed, quickly frozen, portioned lemon juice to the Romanian market, with nothing unnecessary added,” said Radu Necșulescu.
The award received at Monde Selection comes just one month after Frutivo also received the Superior Taste Award 2026 from the International Taste Institute, an international institute specialized in the sensory evaluation of food and beverage products.
While Monde Selection evaluates the product as a whole, the International Taste Institute focuses on the taste experience. The evaluation is carried out through blind tasting, without the jury members knowing the brand, producer, country of origin or price of the product. Criteria such as first impression, visual appearance, smell, taste, texture and final sensation are analyzed.
Through the two distinctions received in 2026, Frutivo gains a double international validation. The Grand Gold Quality Award confirms the general quality of the product, while the Superior Taste Award confirms its sensory profile.
“For me, Frutivo means the courage to build a category that did not exist in Romania. We wanted to change the way people look at a widely used ingredient that is often treated superficially. Properly squeezed lemon, quickly frozen and intelligently portioned can mean consistent taste, less waste and greater efficiency. The fact that a brand born in Romania receives these international validations shows us that the direction is right,” added Radu Necșulescu, founder of Frutivo.
The product can be used in lemonades, teas, cocktails, sauces, dressings, desserts or culinary preparations.
Frutivo continues its development with a focus on quality, consumer education and the promotion of the “freshly squeezed and freshly frozen” concept, a category that the brand opened in Romania and has been developing for 12 years. Present in 7 of the 9 retail chains in Romania and already available in 5 countries, Frutivo transforms a simple need, citrus juice, into a standardized and clean product.
