Published: Monday, November 12, 2007
By Kevin Bouffard

LAKE WALES -- Florida’s Natural Growers, the Lake Wales citrus growers’ cooperative and the third largest seller of orange juice in the U.S. reported profits, or returns, to its growers were 5 percent higher than the citrus industry average for the 2006-07 season. The company's member-growers had received below-average returns for the previous two citrus seasons. It was the company's highest grower return since 1984, following a major freeze.

The improved returns came after a two-year program of cost-cutting that included selling a processing plant in Bartow and a packaging plant in Fullerton, Calif. Florida's Natural also trimmed the number of different products it offered by about 30 percent to concentrate on the most profitable lines.

Although juice sales declined 7 percent by volume, revenue hit a record high of $401.5 million dollars. Despite the volume drop, Florida's Natural outperformed the top two OJ sellers, Tropicana Products Inc. in Bradenton and Houston-based Minute Maid, and the overall U.S. orange juice market, which declined 13 percent during the 2006-07 season.

Hooray!!! I hope that everyone on this board will buy Florida's Natural or another brand of Florida only juice-though it is tricky to locate on store shelves as the Florida Orange Tree logo is apparently not being put on labels anymore to indicate that the juice is Florida grown.