Posted on 04/14/2014 2:15:46 PM PDT by zeestephen
Florida, the source of the majority of oranges used to make orange juice in the U.S., experienced an unusually cold winter, plus a fruit disease. Groves in Brazil, the world's largest orange exporter, are experiencing the worst drought in decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.msn.com ...
There's a reason orange juice sales are way down, and price has nothing to do with it.
The issue is the taste and quality of the juice sold by large commercial producers, which is pure crap compared to 10 years ago.
I grew up in Florida, so I'm an orange juice purist.
Once you drink fresh juice straight from a good grove, you can never go back to store brands.
But that changed dramatically around 1997!
Tropicana and Florida's Natural came out with reasonably priced and widely available "Flash Frozen" orange juice.
Florida juice oranges are the best in the world.
They would pick only in February, March, and April, which are the three best months in the year.
Then, they would freeze ALL their juice immediately after picking.
Then, they would thaw it out as needed for the rest of the year.
The quality was stunning.
I started buying gallons of the stuff every week.
Around 2000, lots of other corporations began to notice the explosion in juice sales, and everybody jumped in.
By 2004, price competition got so bad, almost all the major producers began to cut back on quality, and they cut the carton size from 64 oz to 59 oz a few years later, and kept the same price.
By 2005, Simply Orange was the only producer with anything close to grove quality at a reasonable price.
Then, about a year ago, Simply Orange started tasting like they were grinding up orange peels with the juice.
About a month ago, when juice sales dropped 5%, when Florida orange juice should be at its absolutely best taste, Simply Orange still tasted like orange peels.
I quit!
I am not going pay good money for crap orange juice anymore.
I think they are wrong about price increases.
Demand for their crap products is falling.
If they increase prices, demand will crash completely.
‘Obvious proof of global warming’ is what the MSM will say. To me it’s just proof that the Federal Reserve is deliberately inflating away the value of the dollar.
OMG, the IPCC were CORREST!
OMG, the IPCC were CORRECT!
Quite some decades ago, I had some Lemonade make from left over trees in someone's back yard in some place around Mountain View. NO SUGAR NEEDED!
Definitely an eye-opener in getting stuff fresh and ripe.
We use a masticating juicer and now make our own. Grapefruit juice made this way is especially good...
Anybody seen Beaks where is Beaks ?
Thanks for the blast from the past. I remember most of that jingle. Lawson’s was big here. The OJ, chip chop ham, and their french onion dip!
I’m drinking a glass of Florida’s Natural w/ Lotsa Pulp, right now, and I can vaguely remember that it tasted better with vodka, years ago. Still, not bad at all, but dishwater compared to fresh-squeezed juice right from the grove.
No, it’s GoreBull Warming (Thanks Mtnman!)
I’m from Florida too - and you are one hundred percent right on everything you said...
Unusually cold? I’m in Ocala and we had one of the mildest winters (read: warm/not cold) in at least 5 or 6 years. We lost our one orange tree 2 years ago; it was really cold that winter. But this winter? Uh-uh.
We vacation in Melbourne Beach, and I’m positively addicted to Orchid Island orange juice.
I like orange juice as well as anyboby,but the only way many of us can prepare for sticker price shock is to just not buy the stuff.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.