Orange Sales Boom And Bust

From the Florida Phoenix: By Laura Cassels - April 21, 2020

While sales of traditional orange juice are better than ever during the coronavirus pandemic, other citrus sales have fallen off to the tune of $200 million nationwide, according to three of the nation’s largest citrus grower associations.

That’s because schools and restaurants – key markets for lemons, grapefruit and specialty citrus such as blood oranges – are closed nationwide and have stopped their orders, industry leaders reported this month to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Executives at growers associations in Florida, California and Texas wrote a joint letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to position growers to receive disaster relief under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Passed by Congress last month, the CARES Act pledges more than $2 trillion in economic relief to individuals, small businesses, state and local governments, and industries. It does not specify how much relief may be earmarked for agricultural losses or for citrus losses in particular.

“We have reason to believe based upon damages to date [through April 9] that the immediate COVID-19 impact to certain varieties of citrus will be over $200 million,” says the letter to Perdue. It is signed by Mike Sparks, executive vice president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, Casey Creamer, president and CEO of California Citrus Mutual, and Dale Murden, president and CEO of Texas Citrus Mutual.

“The biggest challenges we are seeing across the industry are due [to] the shutdown of schools and restaurants,” the letter continues. “Additional movement in the retail sector have not compensated for losses in food service for lemons, grapefruit juice, and most specialty varieties.”

The citrus executives reported that grapefruit and grapefruit juice sales came to “a dramatic halt since mid-March” because schools, restaurants and retail outlets had fully or partly closed. The grapefruit season will end in early May, when growers will know better how much grapefruit they grew but cannot sell.

Florida growers expect the grapefruit crop to fill about 5.2 million 70-pound boxes, according to the Florida Department of Citrus.

Lemons, mostly grown in California and mostly sold to food service, have lost 30 percent of their sales, accounting for lost revenue of $4 million to $5 million per week, the growers’ letter says.

Meanwhile, orange juice sales nationwide rose 40 percent when COVID-19 broke out in the United States, according to Nielsen Retail Measurement Services as reported to the Florida Department of Citrus. Florida citrus growers believe consumers who had lost interest in OJ suddenly returned to it in hopes of bolstering immune systems.

This story was originally published by the Florida Phoenix. For more stories from the Florida Phoenix, visit FloridaPhoenix.com.