Where I Purchased This Strawberry Applesauce

I purchased these from a school, at a la carte prices. Zee Zee’s does not sell this flavor in retail. I imagine they are trying to carve their niche in retail with the more unique flavors, like blue raspberry or birthday cake. 

Motts makes one with almost the exact same ingredients you can purchase in the retail size from a grocery store or online here.

First Impressions

Kids love anything with strawberry, so when I discovered that Zee Zee’s makes so many different flavors, this was the first one I wanted to try out with our kids at school.

I figured they’d like it, and I was not wrong!

Zee Zee’s features a character on each of its product packages. These little characters are designed to attract children to the product. While there is certainly evidence that this is effective, at least one study found that it is only effective for healthy foods when the children are familiar with the character.

This product features the character Zelly.

Taste & Texture

You do notice when you open it the smell of strawberries, which I liked.

The color is a nice pink shade – not too artificial-looking and not too pale. I think the pink shade is part of the reason kids are more drawn to it than its plain counterpart.

You can taste strawberries in it, but it’s not very strong. No surprise, since strawberries are more expensive than apples, so they probably needed to control the amount of strawberries that went into it. 

The texture is smooth like the other Zee Zee’s flavors. I like smooth applesauce for kids since they tend to gravitate toward that texture.

Ingredient Highlights

 

 

 

Strawberry Puree

I love that this has real strawberries in it. Not every strawberry applesauce does this!

It has a real strawberry taste, instead of a that candy-like strawberry flavor you find in artificially flavored items. I like to see that!

Natural Flavor and Natural Color

There’s no evidence that natural flavors or colors are harmful, but some people aren’t comfortable consuming them due to the fact that companies don’t have to disclose information about the chemicals they use to provide the flavor. This can cause concern for those with allergies or who maintain strict vegan diets.

Nutrition Facts

 

I’ll highlight just a couple nutrients here.

Sodium

This applesauce is sodium free! We often assume that anything that comes in a package is “highly processed” and therefore, full of salt. This isn’t the case with most canned fruits.

In fact, studies show that canned fruits often contain more nutrients than their fresh counterparts because they are preserved right after harvest, so they aren’t subject to the same nutrient loss that comes with aging produce.

Calories

Compared to the company’s unsweetened original applesauce, this strawberry applesauce contains 10 less calories per serving.

A closer look at the label tells me the difference is coming from the total sugars – 11g in this product vs. 13g in the plain. These are the naturally occurring sugars from the apples and strawberries.

This is not something to worry yourself over – 10 calories is negligible, I just think it’s interesting that pureed strawberries are less calorically dense than pureed apples. 

School Uses

Since each 4.5 oz cup credits as a 1/2 cup fruit, this would be an option for the breakfast or lunch program.

Since it’s not at least 3/4 cup, it wouldn’t be a great pick for the afterschool snack program, unless you wanted to serve another 1/4 cup of fruit with it.

This product is commodity processable, so if your state allows you to process apples, USDA code 110149, you could turn commodity apples into applesauce.

I mentioned earlier that Zee Zee’s features little characters on their products to help attract them to children. To make it more effective, schools could incorporate the character Zelly in the lunchroom. Simple acts, like pointing it out to children, could help make this applesauce more appealing to kids.

Recommendation

The kids in my district prefer this strawberry applesauce over the plain version, but only by a little – we still go through A LOT of the plain.

I would recommend offering this as an additional option, rather than replacing the plain altogether. It’s good to have kids comfortable with both the plain version of a food and the “jazzed up” version so that they are accustomed to it either way. This helps prevent picky eating in the long run! 

Suggested Specifications

For school nutrition programs looking to procure this item, here is a suggested specification:

Applesauce, strawberry flavor, unsweetened, 4.5 oz cup

Comparable Products for “or Equal” Consideration

• Mott’s #10065614
  • This one is almost identical to the Zee Zee’s product
• Musselman’s #18103
  • The only difference between this one and the Zee Zee’s product is that this one uses malic acid instead of ascorbic acid to retain the color. Malic acid is naturally found in apples and ascorbic acid is just vitamin C, so there’s no need to worry about either.
• Peterson Farm’s #ASA10014
  • This one does not contain real strawberries.
• Tree Top #5054
  • This one does not contain real strawberries.
  • It also adds concentrated apple juice. While the FDA doesn’t consider this “Added Sugars” for purposes of the Nutrition Facts Label, it really is like added sugar. Since apple juice is basically just sugar, concentrating it turns it into a concentrated sugar. While the Zee Zee’s product only contains 11g of sugar, the Tree Top version contains 17g of sugar. They’re technically able to say “no added sugar” because of the way the FDA defines it, but don’t be fooled – it does contain more sugar than a typical unsweetened applesauce product.
• Burnette #123961533
  • This one contains red dye

Additional Descriptors to Consider

If you have good reason to narrow down your options, you could add the following descriptor to your specification:

must contain real strawberries

This will exclude the Peterson’s Farm and Tree Top products. You could include this if you want the flavor of strawberries to shine.

no concentrated juice

This will exclude the Tree Top product. You could include this if you are trying to limit sugars and/or calories.

no artificial colors

This will exclude the Burnette’s product. You could include this if you do not want to serve artificial colors in your program; however, you need to apply that restriction fairly.