Orange juice makers consider using alternative fruit as prices skyrocket
Orange juice makers consider using alternative fruit as prices skyrocket
Orange juice manufacturers are grappling with sky-high prices amid a global supply shortage that could force them to turn to alternatives like mandarins.
A global shortage of oranges that sent prices soaring has prompted some orange juice manufacturers to consider turning to alternative fruits to make the breakfast staple.
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"There are three main factors driving the soaring price of orange juice, and it's drought, disease and demand," Ted Jenkin, oXYGen Financial CEO and co-founder, told FOX Business.
The spike stems from declining output in Florida, which is the primary U.S. producer, and disease and extreme weather events in Brazil, which accounts for about 70% of global production.
Orange trees in Brazil have been suffering from a disease known as citrus greening. Once infected, citrus trees produce fruits that are partially green, small, misshapen and bitter. There is no cure, and trees typically die within a few years of infection.
The disease, along with severe heat waves and drought that occurred during the pivotal phases of flowering and early fruit formation, have put Brazil on track to register one of its worst orange harvests in more than three decades, according to a new report published by Fundecitrus and CitrusBR.
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In the past, orange juice makers have avoided long-term shortages by freezing juice stock, which can be preserved and used for up to two years, according to the Financial Times. However, even that frozen stock is dissipating because of a three-year shortage build-up.
Cools said that manufacturers may have to consider using a different fruit, like mandarins, because their trees are more resistant to the greening disease. However, that could be a lengthy process.
The currently sold-in-stores orange juice tastes almost nothing like actual orange juice already.
Right I have no idea how they make that stuff but I just always assumed it contains little actual orange.
There’s a dirty secret in your glass of orange juice. Even though it says “not from concentrate,” it probably sat in a large vat for up to year with all the oxygen removed from it. This allows it to be preserved and dispensed all year-round. Taking out all the O2 also gets rid of all the flavor. So the juice makers have to add the flavors back in using preformulated recipes full of chemicals called “flavor packs.” Mmm, delicious, fresh-squeezed ethyl-butyrate!
Generic orange juice is a commodified product (ie, you can order a standard 1 tonne of frozen orange juice whenever).
The freezing process destroys a lot of the flavour, so some rind extract is included to bulk up the taste.
Freshly squeezed still has the original flavour, and not the added rind flavour.
(I didn't look this up, mind, it's possibly I've just repeated an old wives tale!)
If my grade school art teacher was correct, they could take some red cranberry juice and add some yellow lemon juice to get the same result.
Ngl, that actually sounds pretty good
right, who cares if it tastes like OJ? long as it's good it's good
Cranberry and lemon?
Have you had either, just as they are? Neither are particularly sweet. Biting into a lemon is rarely as refreshing an experience as biting into a ripe sweet orange.
Guess if you added a metric fuckton of sugar it might be palatable, but if I want a want added sugar in my drinks, I'll have a soda of some sort.
At that point, just go ahead and add some vodka while you're there. You've got a screwdriver, a cape cod and a vodka lemonade all in one.
let me guess, climate change?
And capitalistic mass production with no respect for natural resources, aka intensive farming. Plants are grown in huge monocultures with little to no genetic diversity thus making them prone to what would naturally be limited issues like unfavourable weather or diseases
Can't say that in Florida, so it must be something else
Here in Florida there is a disease called citrus greening. The fruit grows small and falls off before it's ripe. It's basically destroyed the citrus industry. It's spread by flying insects so impossible to control and there is no cure.
So climate change doesn't help but that's not the main culprit.
Flying insects are not necessarily impossible to control. You can promote the populations of their predators.
The problem is, that usually requires promoting a mixture of amphibians, birds, reptiles, small mammals, and other insects. To do that, you need a habitat full of various plants, trees, and terrains, but vast swathes of land have been turned into dead monoculture, so the predators die out.
A blight in this case. It's been happening for a while. I think Arizona's drier climate is the only place to reliably grow it right now.
They didn’t give a reason for declining output in Florida. I assume global warming related, but I wonder if there’s another reason
They pissed off migrant workers too, didn't they?
They didn’t give a reason for declining output in Florida.
It does say:
On top of that, Florida has been hit by a series of hurricanes as well as the greening disease, which is spread by a tiny insect called the Asian citrus psyllid.
Chasing out all of the migrant labor with threats of legal action and/or violence.
They just didn't want to say that for some reason.
Best thing about the color and fruit having the same name is as long as the juice color is the same it will always be Orange Juice.
Warning: this is orange juice, not orange juice
The color is named after the fruit
Or they could be transparent with their customers and call it a similar sounding new name, distinct enough in its own right but rhyming with the original name, but the capitalist pigs won't ever do that
It isn't just ' freezing juice stock', really that hasn't been the way things have been done in a long time.
JuicePaks from givaudan have been normalized since maybe the '80's.
Consumers expect orange juice to taste like 'orange juice', year round, whether it was a good or bad year. There isn't anything intrinsically bad about that anymore than expecting bananas to taste like Cavendish.
The world is changing though, and tastes will have to adapt.
Oh how the tables have turned...
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220627-how-orange-juice-took-over-the-breakfast-table
"The innovation [of concentrated juice] arrived as Florida growers were dealing with cyclical, massive overproduction. The promise of a new way to make juice that could be kept frozen, then reconstituted in people’s homes, prompted them into even more production, however. They ramped up tree planting in the 1940s. The oranges went to frozen concentrate and eventually, to chilled juice, an industry term for the refrigerated product. If juice could be kept in stasis, held in waiting for a consumer’s glass, then the only problem was ramping up demand as much as possible."
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"It had taken a few decades, but with the help of advertising and processing technology, the dumping ground for extra oranges was solidly ensconced as its own product, far outpacing oranges themselves in sales."
It's raspberry jam all over again!
Only in America is overabundance a problem to solve
"Ain't no such thing as climate change!!!"
[Climate charge ends orange juice]
"Librulz want to CANCEL my orange juice!!!!"
"My God. The Dukes are going to corner the entire frozen orange juice market!"
I have mine falling on the floor because I can't eat/drink them all.
Isn't that just fruit juice, then?
No it's still juice that is orange, just not juice from an orange.
Reminds me of that one essay where they talked about burning oranges to maintain the price
The sources are a CEO and FOX Business? Yeah that doesn't mean anything to me, hoss.
There is no cure, and trees typically die within a few years of infection.
Molecular biologists could make tree that won't get infected. Until ecoactivists like Greenpeace will come and uproot the trees.
Has the disease been researched well enough for us to know how to genetically engineer resistance to it? If not, what you're saying is a moot point.
Considering article about it on wikipedia was created in 2005 and says it appeared in USSA in 1998, it should have been researched.
Also quick look at Control section suggets that it is well-researched already.
Humanity already researched so many diseases, that biggest problem to research new one is paywall
There are greening tolerant (not resistant) varieties developed already, yes of course biologists have been and are urgently working on it. I have a "sugar bell" tree, that's one of them.