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 we know that the price of frozen concentrated orange juice (Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice or FCOJ), peaked at 3.17 dollars per pound at the end of July, when it exceeded just $1.75 at the same time last year.
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 state in the southeastern 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 the “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), i.e. 60% lower than last year. One of Florida’s worst harvests since the 1930s, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Something to alert the hexagonal agri-food industry. “Orange juice concentrate, used to make orange juice from concentrates and orange nectars (…) has become very difficult to find for all buyers in the juice sector”, said noted The National Interprofessional Union of Fruit Juices (Unijus), in a press release published in May. Not to mention that the situation is not much better in other exporting countries, according to the federation. “Mexican production intended mainly 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,” the statement read.
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%”, specifies the expert. He sees little improvement in the short term, as Brazil is also a limited exporting country. “The market is very controlled, few players have the 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? “For the moment, demand is stable,” observes 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 in supermarkets. Orange, apple: who will win the battle on the shelf?
