Publix Bakery Apple Pie — ENGINEERED

Munch or Dump rates Publix Bakery Apple Pie by Publix Bakery ENGINEERED — score 30/90.

Real apples lead the filling, which is the best thing about it, but the pie is sweetened with both apple juice concentrate and sucralose and thickened with modified corn starch. The crust is refined flour and palm oil, and sodium benzoate keeps it shelf-stable. A holiday-nostalgia pie that is more formulated than baked-from-scratch, and the artificial sweetener is an odd note in a classic dessert.

Why this verdict

• Two sweetener sources including sucralose, an artificial sweetener, in a traditional dessert
• Hyper-palatable formula: sweeteners plus refined oil plus refined and modified starch
• Modified food starch and sodium benzoate mark it as an industrial formulation
• Refined enriched-flour and palm-oil crust with no whole grain
• NOVA 4 ultra-processed

Ingredients (9)

• apples (safe) — Real fruit and the primary ingredient; genuine nutritional value.
• Enriched wheat flour (moderate) — Refined flour stripped of bran then fortified - the crust base.
• Palm and soybean oil (moderate) — Refined oils forming the crust.
• modified food starch (moderate) — Industrial thickener that gives the condensed texture; a processing marker.
• APPLE JUICE CONCENTRATE (moderate) — 100% fruit, but a concentrated sugar source with the fiber removed.
• Sucralose (moderate) — Artificial sweetener; unexpected in a bakery pie and a second sweetness source.
• sodium benzoate (caution) — Chemical preservative for shelf life.
• Cinnamon and nutmeg (safe) — Real spices.
• Whey (safe) — Milk protein for body.