Supermarket wellness shots compared, and how to read the label

The chiller cabinet next to the fresh juice now holds a whole row of tiny bottles, turmeric, ginger, beetroot, and vitamin blends, and from the front they can look almost identical.

Supermarket wellness shots differ most on the back of the bottle. NHS guidance on food labels explains that ingredients must be listed in descending order of weight, so the first one tells you what a shot is mostly made of. Under UK front-of-pack rules, a drink is high in sugar above 11.25g per 100ml.

Key takeaways

• The first ingredient on a wellness shot is the one there's most of, and it's often a fruit juice base rather than the ingredient in the name.
• If an ingredient is in the product name or pictured on the pack, UK rules mean its percentage should be on the label.
• Compare sugar per 100ml, because shots come in different sizes.
• A vitamin claim on the front has a legal minimum behind it, so it's a useful signal.
• How a shot is kept fresh, with heat or with pressure, affects how much of the fresh juice character survives.

What are supermarket wellness shots?

Small, ready-to-drink bottles sold in the chilled aisle, usually built around one headline ingredient.

A wellness shot is defined as a small, concentrated drink, usually 60ml to 100ml, made to be taken in one go as part of a daily routine. Supermarket versions are typically led by turmeric, ginger, beetroot, or added vitamins, and come as single bottles, multipacks, or larger bottles you pour a shot from. Our guide to what a wellness shot is covers the category in more depth.

Ranges vary a lot by store and change through the year, so rather than rank brands, this guide shows you how to compare any two bottles yourself.

How do you read a wellness shot label?

Start with the ingredients list, then the percentages, then the sugar, then any claims.

The ingredients list comes first. Because ingredients run from most to least by weight, the first two or three tell you the base. In most shots that's a fruit juice such as apple, orange, or pineapple, which carries the stronger ingredients and makes them drinkable. Ours is no exception: watermelon comes first in every one of our blends. A juice base isn't a bad thing, but it's worth knowing what you're mostly drinking.

Next, the percentages. GOV.UK guidance on food labelling says the quantity of an ingredient has to be shown as a percentage when it appears in the name of the food, is emphasised on the label, or is pictured. So a bottle called a turmeric shot should tell you how much turmeric it contains. That single figure is the fairest way to compare two shots with the same headline ingredient.

Then the sugar. The NHS guidance on sugar suggests using the "of which sugars" figure to compare products, and per 100ml is the column to read, because bottle sizes differ. The sugars in fruit juice count as free sugars, the kind adults are advised to keep below 30g a day.

Finally, the claims. A front-of-pack line such as "source of vitamin C" isn't decoration. For a drink to make it, the UK labelling regulation sets a minimum of 7.5% of the nutrient reference value per 100ml, or 15% per portion for a single-serve pack. Health claims must come from the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register, so a claim about what a vitamin does for you has been authorised, not invented.

How much sugar is in a wellness shot?

Less than a glass of juice, because the serving is so small, but compare per 100ml all the same.

Under the UK front-of-pack labelling guidance, a drink is green, or low, for sugar at 2.5g or less per 100ml, and red, or high, above 11.25g per 100ml. The extra portion-size rules only apply to servings over 150ml, so a 60ml shot is judged on its per 100ml figure alone.

For context, the NHS 5 A Day guidance suggests no more than 150ml of fruit juice and smoothies a day in total, and one small shot takes up only a part of that.

Does it matter how a shot is kept fresh?

Yes, and it's one of the least visible differences on the shelf.

Fresh juice spoils quickly, so most shots are treated to make them last. The traditional method is heat pasteurisation. The alternative is high pressure processing, or HPP, which uses intense water pressure instead of heat. A review from Poland found HPP preserved more of the bioactive compounds in juices than heat pasteurisation, without the need for preservatives. A University of Granada review reached a similar view of non-thermal methods in general, while noting results vary between juices, and a review of vitamin C in processed juices found heat treatment can cut vitamin C by 50% to 70%, with non-thermal methods, HPP among them, generally keeping more.

We've used HPP from the start, and our piece on the UK's biggest HPP machine explains how it works: pressure of up to 6,000 bar, no heat, and no added preservatives.

Where do our shots fit?

On the same shelf in some stores, with the details on the label for you to check.

You'll find our shots in selected Tesco, Sainsbury's, Boots, and Ocado ranges, though what each store carries varies. Some Tesco stores stock larger 420ml bottles of Raw Turmeric Original, Raw Turmeric & Ginger, and Raw Turmeric & Vitamin C & D3, each holding seven 60ml shots.

Read our labels the way this guide suggests and you'll see the figures. Raw Turmeric Original declares raw turmeric root at 30%, the most in our range, after a cold-crushed watermelon base, with our trade-secret BioMax Uptake Blend®, which includes black pepper, at a 0.1% inclusion. Our shots are vegan and Sugarwise certified.

If you'd like to try the range before you pick a favourite, the Mixed Shot Box lets you try several of our blends in one box.

The takeaway

Supermarket wellness shots can look the same from the front, but the back of the bottle tells you what you're buying. Check the first ingredient, look for the headline ingredient's percentage, compare sugar per 100ml, and treat vitamin claims as a sign that a legal minimum is present. Then look at how it's kept fresh.

Our labels are written to stand up to that kind of reading. To compare the whole range at home, the Mixed Shot Box is the easiest place to start, one shot each morning straight from the fridge.

Frequently asked questions