Why there is no concentrate in our broth
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Here is something that does not come up much. A large share of the broth sold as bone broth has been reduced down to a concentrate somewhere, shipped as a concentrate, and had water put back into it at the other end.
I understand entirely why. Broth is mostly water, and water is heavy. Reduce it and you ship a fraction of the weight, store a fraction of the volume, and your freight bill stops being the thing that decides whether the business works. From a spreadsheet, concentrate is obviously the right answer.
We do not do it, and I want to be straight about what that costs and what it buys.
What is lost on the way down and back up
Reducing broth means boiling water off it. The gentler aromatics go with the steam. What comes back when you add water is not what left the pot, it is a reconstruction of it, and it tends to need help to taste like broth again. That is where natural flavours and yeast extract come in.
You can taste the difference between a broth that was made and packed, and a broth that was made, reduced, moved, and rebuilt. Not dramatically. But in a cup you are drinking on its own, with nothing else going on, you notice.
What it costs us
We ship water. All of it. Our frozen pouches go out as 800ml of actual broth, which means freight, cold chain, and freezer space for something that is mostly the thing water already is.
It is the single least efficient decision in the business and it is why a pouch is fourteen dollars rather than eight.
Why I keep doing it
Because the thing I am actually selling is that what is in your cup is what came out of our pot. The moment that becomes what came out of our pot, minus the water, plus different water, plus something to make up for the difference, I am selling a different product and I would have to be careful about how I described it.
I spent years in marketing being careful about how I described things. This is more straightforward.
How to spot it
Read the ingredients. If it says concentrate, or it says made from concentrate, that is your answer. If the list is short and jumps from water to something that is not a food, that is usually your answer too.
Natural flavours and yeast extract are the tell. They are not there for no reason, and the reason is usually that something was taken out earlier that needs replacing. There is more on reading labels here.
And if you cannot read the ingredients because you are looking at a photograph on a website, hold the question until the carton is in your hand. The front of a package has never told anybody much.
Common questions
What is bone broth concentrate?
Broth that has been reduced to remove most of its water, usually to make it cheaper to ship and store, then reconstituted with water later.
Is broth from concentrate worse?
It is a different product. Reduction drives off aromatics, and what gets added to compensate is worth reading the ingredients for.
Why is real bone broth expensive?
Time, whole cuts rather than trim, and shipping a product that is mostly water without reducing it first.
How can I tell if a broth is from concentrate?
The ingredient list will say so. Natural flavours and yeast extract on a short list are a related signal.