Florida's Natural Orange Juice Has an Amazing Story

The world is divided into two groups. One group reads the labels on cereal boxes during breakfast. The other does not.

I belong to the former group, and enjoy the stories that get told on these labels — even when prompted by others at the table who belong to the other group and think me rude for reading. So be it.

It’s interesting because what gets printed on a label is a compromise between what the government inspectors will allow and what the manufacturers want to say to get the product flying off the shelves.

However, yesterday morning I read a label that truly amazed me. It involved an orange juice carton with “Florida’s Natural 100% Premium Orange Juice” inside.

It’s quite a story.

Back in the 1950s when I was a boy, the only orange juice we could get here in New York was frozen orange juice (called “Birdseye”). But then, about 1970, just about the time that Walt Disney World opened, an enterprising company called Tropicana began shipping fresh-squeezed orange juice to New York City by rail. A special pasteurizing process made this possible. Everyone was delighted with this.

Also, Tropicana, in central Florida, had made deals with some orange growers in the area to plant and harvest oranges on a staggered basis, so month by month it would be available all year around. Into the factory would come freshly picked oranges. Out would go the cartons of freshly squeezed juice.

Tropicana ruled the roost this way until the 1990s when a group of other Florida growers who had not signed up with Tropicana now had a growers cooperative that could sell the exact same thing and write about how they were independent and would be happy if you would support them.

So, after that, in our nearby supermarket we’d come home with either Tropicana or Florida’s Natural, which stood side by side on the shelves and were about the same price. And tasted just about the same. Seemed like American competition at its best.

Florida’s Natural had this on their carton: “Florida’s Natural is a proud citrus cooperative that’s owned by hundreds of Florida farmers and their families. We’re real people working together for over five generations to grow the wonderful citrus we all love.”

Except there was now something new on the carton we brought home last week. How shall I put this. It now appears that Florida’s Natural, in its competition with Tropicana, was falling behind. Here’s what is said on the carton right after “…the wonderful citrus we all love.”

“Unfortunately, Mother Nature has been pretty harsh over the past years, and our harvest is about 70% lower than just a decade ago. There’s just not enough juice in Florida, so all our varieties now contain a blend of juice from Florida and Mexico.”

Uh-oh.

“Rest assured though; as a citrus cooperative we’re all hands in, from tree to table, working together, picking only the sweetest, juiciest oranges to bring you the most delicious, freshest-tasting juice you love from Florida’s Natural. Together, from tree to table, Florida’s Natural.”

A full-color photograph accompanying this text shows a smiling young Florida farmer wearing jeans and a green Florida Natural baseball cap looking out at you while happily carrying a wooden crate of fresh Florida oranges. It says Florida Natural on the side of the crate. And adjacent to this photograph is the caption “Deeley Hunt of Lake Wales, Florida” so we know who he is.

As you turn the container a bit, however, you come upon writing about Mexico. “A premium blend of our Florida not-from-concentrate orange juice and the best orange juice from Mexico.”

So there’s this Mexican farmer somewhere saying to a fellow worker, “Pedro, these boxes on the right are our best stuff. Goes to America.” Right.

Did you notice that the Florida orange juice is not-from-concentrate orange juice but there’s no mention of the Mexican orange juice being not-from-concentrate?

Well, in the small print down on the bottom of one side, our government requires that the ingredients be listed. And so they are. Here are the first three ingredients. “Water. Orange Juice, Concentrated Orange Juice.”

Elsewhere on the label is the statement “Fresh From the Grove Taste.” I’m not sure, but I think before Mexico got involved it read “Fresh from the Grove,” without the word “taste” after it. It would have passed muster.

The first real job I had after I finished college was working as a copywriter for a big Manhattan advertising agency called Foote, Cone & Belding. Tossing all the words that might appear on the side of food containers was among the things we did during my time there.

What in the world do you do when frozen orange juice from another country has to be trucked up and mixed in with the fresh stuff? In another day at another time, we marketers would have figured this out a bit better, I think — and still pass the food and drug administration guidelines.

The biggest problem might be the name of the cooperative itself. Florida’s Natural. What the hell. It’s only partly Florida’s Natural now.

How about “Florida’s Choice?” Just trying to help here.

Of course it all comes down to how it tastes. We didn’t have any Tropicana in the house. So I had to do a free association version of the comparison. I decided the orange color looked almost neon. And the taste was, well, weird.

The next day, still without Tropicana, I tried the free association test again. And this time it tasted okay. Maybe I’d just freaked out yesterday. Can’t be sure.

Looks like Tropicana, which continues to market only fresh-squeezed orange juice, might be driving Florida’s Natural into uncharted territory. Just have to roll with the punches, I guess.