2023-08-10 20:04:25
This season, orange production in Florida is expected to be 16.1 million crates (41 kilos each), 60% less than last year. Sergey Ryzhov / stock.adobe.com
Dragon disease in Florida, drought in Mexico, limited exports to Brazil… global orange production is shrinking, causing prices to soar on the shelves.
It is the essential of breakfasts… but it could soon weigh heavily on the food budget of the French. Orange juice has seen its prices soar for several months, mainly due to poor harvests in the United States and Brazil, the two main orange exporting countries in the world. A surge in prices which is not surprising when you know that the price of frozen concentrated orange juice (the Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice or FCOJ), peaked at $3.17 a pound in late July, when it was just above $1.75 a year earlier.
The reasons for this excitement are to be found in Florida, the world’s second largest producer of orange juice, after Brazil. For more than ten years, the southeastern state of the United States has been battling with yellow dragon disease, also called Huanglongbing (HLB). At the origin of this evil of oranges, a bacterium, transmitted by an insect, the Asian citrus psylla. It turns the fruits of the affected tree green, making them unfit for consumption. Added to “yellow dragon», Hurricane Ian, which hit the region in October 2022, reduced the industry to a trickle. This season, production should be 16.1 million crates (41 kilos each), ie 60% less than last year. Either one of the worst Florida harvests since the 1930s, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Something to alert the hexagonal agri-food industry. “The orange juice concentrate, used to make orange juice from concentrate and orange nectars (…) has become very difficult to find for all buyers in the juice sector“, noted the National Interprofessional Union of Fruit Juices (Unijus), in a statement published in May. Not to mention that the situation is hardly better in other exporting countries, according to the federation. “Mexican production, mainly intended for the ordinary American market, has also fallen by 30% this year due to the drought. This is also what has been observed in Spain due to lack of water“, we read in the press release.
Transfer to apple juice
A specialist in mass distribution, Olivier Dauvers agrees with this observation. “With a 20% increase since the start of the year, inflation on orange juice is higher than the average for other food products, which is around 15%“says the expert. He sees little improvement in the short term, as Brazil is also a limited exporting country. “The market is tightly controlled, few players have authorization to export, and prices are thus maintained“, he comments. Another aggravating factor: the high price of sugar. “The price of fruit nectar used in industrial orange juice depends on the price of fruit concentrate, which is high, but also on sugar“recalls Olivier Dauvers. However, it has also been close to the peaks since the beginning of the year.
Will consumers end up shunning the traditional breakfast orange juice? “At the moment, demand is stableobserves Olivier Dauvers. But it may not be forever: orange juice is indeed one of the only food consumption goods that should not see its price drop at the start of the school year. Other juices could therefore steal the show. “A transfer of demand to apple juice is already underway“says the specialist, who notes their increasingly imposing presence at the head of the gondola of supermarkets. Orange, apple: who will win the battle on the shelf?
”
data-script=”
>
#orange #juice #expensive