While pure orange juice already costs 11% more on the shelves in France than a year ago, and concentrated juice 24% more expensive, the explosion in market prices could cause a further increase in 40 to 50 cents.
Red alert on orange juice. On the markets, wholesale prices are soaring, climbing by almost 77% in one year. They have undergone a five-fold increase since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic at the end of February 2020. Last month, they even recorded a new record, rising to 4.5325 dollars per pound (approximately 450 grams). Enough to fear a new surge in prices on the shelves. News, because pure orange juice already costs 11% more today than a year ago, and concentrated juice 24% more expensive, according to data from panelist Circana.
This is due to forecasts of catastrophic orange harvests in Brazil – the world’s leading producer of juice – which are expected to fall by 24% over one year according to the Fundecitrus firm, to their lowest level in 36 years. The South American giant was hit hard by a major drought, which hit the main growing regions. To top it off, Huanglongbing disease (HLB), also called yellow dragon disease, which can disrupt the ripening of citrus fruits and cause premature fruit drop, has infested the crops.
Disease which also affects plantations in Florida, another main world producer of juice oranges. Added to this, in the state in the southeast of the United States, were weather events which ravaged the latest harvests (Hurricane Ian and cold snap). “It’s a crisis. We’ve never seen anything like it, even during big freezes and hurricanes.”estimated with the Financial Times Kees Cools, President of the International Fruit and Vegetable Juice Federation (IFU).
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Towards a new increase of 40 to 50 cents
Emmanuel Vasseneix, president of the National Interprofessional Union of Fruit Juices (Unijus), gives an order of magnitude to assess the scale of the crisis: “What is currently lacking in terms of products is the equivalent of European consumption of orange juice”he said, interviewed by France 2. “Hence enormous tensions on quantities and also on prices”, he added. In France, while orange juice has already been one of the most inflationary products for a year, the sector expects a further increase in shelf prices of 40 to 50 cents in the months to come.
To the point that this crisis is pushing juice manufacturers to turn to alternative fruits. THE Financial Times reports that, for the president of the international federation of producers Kees Cools, the long-term solution could be to make orange juice from tangerines, whose trees are more resistant to climate change. But such a change would require regulatory changes.