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Citrus market turning up sweet
Daily Commercial – January 22, 2012
Cold weather scares aside, it’s good to be in the Florida citrus business these days.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently halted all imports of orange juice and concentrates as it tests shipments for the carbendazim fungicide, one that is legal in several countries but not the United States. Some growers and juice companies in Florida are reminding customers their products aren’t from abroad.
“It’s good timing to say it’s all U.S.A. fruit,” Matt McLean, founder of a small juice company in Clermont called Uncle Matt’s Organic, tells CNNMoney.
Then 20-employee company, the nation’s oldest manufacturer of organic orange juice, sells tangerines, grapefruit and other citrus crops grown on 1,110 acres owned by his family and 25 fellow farmers to retailers including Whole Foods Market Inc. and Kroger Co.
“Because of our compliance with USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP), we do not use any synthetic fungicides in our farm plan for any juice crops, including the Hamlin and Valencia oranges used in our orange juice,” McLean said. “Our farm plan is free of the fungicide carbendazim, and other banned synthetics as laid out by the NOP.”
Domestically produced orange juice is worth $9 billion to Florida’s economy, as it fights for market share with juice produced in Brazil and Mexico. Brazil has said it will continue use of carbendazim fungicide, needed in the treatment of black spot, and that the levels present in its produce fall within safe amounts.
Although the 59 oz bottles of Uncle Matt’s Organic orange juice have always stated the contents are domestically grown, McLean two weeks ago shifted a tiny red, white and blue “All USA fruit” label from the back to the front.
He wanted to support American farmers like himself, but the timing of the move is fortunate for his business, given current fears about foreign fruit.
“Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” McLean told CNNMoney.
About 75 percent of all orange juice consumed in the United States is supplied domestically, and the rest is imported, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
South of Lake County in Lake Wales, Florida’s Natural Brand Premium juice is 100 percent Florida grown, a fact they point out in television commercials and most likely will continue to do so. And two months ago, Tropicana — the largest buyer of Florida oranges — said it made an “unrelated decision” to transition to 100 percent Florida orange juice for its Pure Premium juices.
Florida grapefruit dealers are also sitting prettier these days after years of acreage reduction blamed on citrus canker and other pressures.
“We won’t be able to supply all the retailers who want Florida grapefruit,” Michel Sallin, president & CEO of IMG Enterprises in Groveland, recently told the Southeast Farm Press.
With the decrease in Florida’s production, every other grapefruit-producing country boosted production. The problem is lesser quality grapefruit from Spain, Turkey and Israel has turned off some foreign consumers, meaning Florida growers, again, will have to tout their grown-in-the-USA product more aggressively.
About half of Florida’s grapefruit production is exported, but for IMG — which owns groves and a packinghouse in the Indian River area — the number is closer to 70 percent.
“We have to do a lot of marketing work there on differentiation of Florida grapefruit from fruit from other areas,” Sallin told the Southeast Farm Press.
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