By Kevin Bouffard
The Ledger
Write an email to Kevin Bouffard
Kevin BouffardKevin Bouffard
Reporter -- East Polk
Dept.: Business News
(863) 802-7591
kevin.bouffard@theledger.com

LAKE ALFRED -- Orange growers in Brazil and Florida fiercely compete in the global market for orange juice, but the competitors can unite over one thing — the need for scientific research to address common pest and disease problems.

That was one theme from Wednesday’s 90th anniversary celebration at the Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred, part of the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

The event included the dedication of the center’s new Citrus Pathology Building, a key facility in the battle against two major bacterial diseases facing growers in both countries — the fatal citrus greening and the fruit-scarring citrus canker. UF officials also rededicated the Ben Hill Griffin Jr. Citrus Hall, which houses the center's library and meeting rooms.

Fieldtrips to the Lake Alfred Experiment station were major highlights of my college education.Way back in the late '70's (when I last visited) I was facinated by the plots that showed nematode injury. The staff was very good at giving educational tours-a real credit to IFAS and UF-I would love to pay them another visit.

Florida is losing the battle for supremacy in the orange juice battle with Brazil, and to a great extent it is due to just one family. Jose Cutrale, Jr., known at the emperor of orange juice, was only a wholesale dealer of fresh oranges in the central market of Sao Paulo, Brazil, until December 12, 1962. Jose started a company called Sucocitrico and entered the juice business on December 12, 1962 the night that Florida citrus was all but destroyed by frost. The Cutrale family today, 45 years later, grows 1,125,000 acres of orange trees in Sao Paulo. Sucocitrico owns its own tankers for exporting orange juice concentrate; one of these, the Orange Blossom, has a capacity of 13,000 tons. Sucocitrico's share of the global frozen concentrated market is one-fifth of the total world market. Coke Cola Corporation purchases essentially all of it orange juice from the Cutrale's company, Sucocitrico which Coke sells under the brand name Minute Maid. Coke does not purchase any juice from Florida. I can no longer find in the supermarket orange juice with the Florida Orange Tree on the label, which stood for juice that was 100 percent Florida grown, and processed. I believe it is now all a Florida/Brazil blend. If I was the Lake Alfred Citrus Pathology Research facility I would not share any of the results that they might develop against the diseases canker and greening with their competitors in Brazil.

Hi Millet,
It's a shame that you can't find Florida Orange Juice where you are at-oddly at Publix here in Florida most of what is offered is Florida grown You may want to visit http://www.floridasnatural.com/
be sure to click on the links on the left to-The Story of Florida's Natural, The Grove and The Growers.Perhaps you can get your grocery store to stock and sell Florida's Natural- my wife (who can be very persuasive) has actually got grocery stores to stock things that she wants to buy-most recently it was Diet Nestea.Otherwise we may have to plan a vacation to Colorado so that my wife can persuade your grocery store to sell Florida's Natural

Millet and Davidmac,

Thanks for the wonderful information! I am still scratching my head as to where the oranges from California and Texas end up? Are they used for juices or simply fresh fruit market because of the cleaner, brighter peels, and zestier taste? I haven't looked into where this multi-billion $ citrus industry (both Texas and California, not to mention a little bit of Arizona too) is doing their citrus sales or where the products go mostly.

Joe

Hello Joe,
The Texas,Arizona and California oranges are indeed used for fresh fruit sales because-
1.Most Florida Oranges are so juicy that you have to eat them over the sink or in the bathtub.
2.Most Florida Oranges have such thin,tough peels that you have to use a knife to peel them-warning stickers "Caution -Do not attempt to peel with your fingers!You make break your finger nails!" are needed.
3.Lots of Florida oranges have muy verde peels when turned into juice-its hard to convince the public that green skins are not an indication of being unripe.
In Florida we still have the Indian River District that grows citrus for fresh fruit and some from the Ridge-largely speciality varieties such as navels,tangelos,and grapefruit.
We like our homegrown citrus because-
1.If a semi trailer should run over a California orange it would not wet the pavement.
2.California oranges are a rip-off because they have peels that are two inches thick!
3.California oranges are just too damn pretty to peel and eat-they are best left in the fruit bowl to ogle!

Thanks Dave, that's so true! I enjoyed reading this.

In a juice processing plant, the orange juice and pulp are separated from the peel, the seeds and the membrane material in less than one second. The capacity of a typical Florida processing plant is about 400,000 tons per year. Currently, plants with the capacity for processing more than a million tons of fresh oranges per year are being introduced by Sucocitrico of Brazil, owned by the Cutrale family. In these newer plants, orange juice flows at the rate of a small river: 330 tons per hour, which converts to 750 gallons or orange juice per minute.