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.
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.
Predators? That sounds expensive, complicated, and could negatively affect profits.
Can’t we just spray the trees with massive quantities of something cheap and effective like DDT?
Sure, until after several insect generations when many have adapted.
The currently sold-in-stores orange juice tastes almost nothing like actual orange juice already.
You have been drinking orange juice, not orange juice. It’s an easy mistake to make.
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!)
can I just use the zester to get some of the acidic bite back into a fresh sqeeuzed thing?
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!
Reminds me of that one essay where they talked about burning oranges to maintain the price
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.
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 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.
It’s raspberry jam all over again!
Only in America is overabundance a problem to solve
