The price of orange juice has risen by more than a third in 2024 as production in major supplier Brazil continues to remain low while producers fight against the “greening” disease affecting crops.
The prices of orange futures have risen around 35 percent this year so far. Orange futures were trading at $4.41 a pound as of 3:35 a.m. EST on June 7, up from $3.25 per pound at the beginning of 2024. Since 2020, prices are up by 354 percent from $0.97 per pound. The spike has been attributed to declining production of oranges.
Out of the roughly 19.8 billion liters of juice beverages consumed globally every year, roughly seven billion is accounted for by orange juice, said a May 31 press release by the International Fruit and Vegetable Juice Association (IFU). The supply side of orange juice has been facing “significant constraints,” it noted.
According to data from Statista, Brazil is the largest orange juice producer in the world. The country produced 1.12 million metric tons in the marketing year 2022/23, far higher than the second-placed Mexico with 0.18 million metric tons. The IFU points out that Brazil has seen a “substantial reduction in carry-over stocks due to consecutive low crops.”
“These lower crops are attributed to adverse weather conditions and a more troubling, long-term issue: a tree disease known as greening. Greening disease, which ultimately kills the trees, currently has no cure.”
The outlook for orange juice remains “challenging,” as restoring normal stock levels in Brazil requires multiple consecutive good harvests, the IFU said. Orange juice prices have jumped from $2,000 to $7,000 per metric ton, indicating a “crisis”-level situation.
“With 40 percent of Brazilian plantations affected by greening disease and the risk of this number increasing, coupled with volatile climate conditions, the likelihood of achieving such harvests is low. As a result, high prices are expected to persist. Although there is a slight decrease in demand, it is insufficient to rebalance the market.”
Since there is no short-term solution in sight and the risk of worsening disease conditions continue, the situation of juice supply remains critical, the organization stated.
In the United States, the crisis is complicated by production drops in Florida. United States is the third-largest orange juice producer after Brazil and Mexico, outputting 0.09 million metric tons in the 2022/23 marketing year.
The IFU pointed out that the greening disease has “severely impacted” Florida’s orange production, dropping from 242 million boxes 20 years back to roughly 17 million boxes today.
Peter Spyke, a citrus consultant and president of Arapaho Citrus Management in Ft. Pierce, Florida, pointed to similar numbers.
“In 2005, the year greening was discovered in Florida, the citrus industry in Florida produced 250 million boxes of oranges, and last year we produced 20 million boxes,“ Mr. Spyke told The Epoch Times. ”Basically, greening has resulted in the groves not being productive. So, people are choosing not to grow citrus on that land. They grow something else.”
The combination of orange production shortage in Brazil and Florida has pushed up prices of orange juice, he said.
Adjusting to Market Conditions
With output down and raw material costs rising, producers are turning to raising consumer prices, the IFU said.Orange juice producers are also opting for alternatives like nectars with only 50 percent juice as well as drinks containing 10–20 percent juice.
In some cases, producers are mixing orange and mandarin juices or offering multifruit blends at competitive prices. “Apple juice, which is not affected by the same issues, is also being positioned as an alternative.”
Mr. Cools said that while mixing mandarin with orange juice can be a solution to the crisis, it is not allowed in Europe without renaming the juice product.
The long-term solution would be to breed oranges to create hybrids that look and smell like regular oranges, but are resistant to the greening disease, he said. In the short term, other fruits and veggies can act as alternatives to orange juice.
Mr. Spyke said that Florida was working to solve the greening issue so that crops can be replanted and the citrus industry can be rebuilt.
“That is going to happen. We already know more about [greening] than when we first discovered it in Florida. There’s been a lot of work and a lot of good support from the legislators and the federal government and we believe it will pay off and we can come back.”
Legislators are providing the industry with research “support,” Mr. Spyke said. “We have lots and lots of researchers here in Florida and in other places, like California. We’ve done collaborations with China. We’ve worked with other producers throughout South Africa. Everyone is very open. We’re all comparing our scientific data to help finance the research.”
He believes the industry has to establish a viable model for moving forward in the short term. Once the model has been set up, people will start replanting crops. Mr. Spyke said they have identified several varieties of oranges that are either not affected by greening or tolerate it well.
