Americans Seem to Be Losing Taste for Orange, Grapefruit : Florida Tries to Sweeten Citrus’ Image as Sales of Its Juices Turn Sour

Americans are losing their taste for orange juice, and the demand for fresh grapefruit has soured at a time when the Florida groves are laden with a bumper crop.

And that has the billion-dollar Florida citrus industry worried, worried enough to fight back with a proposed $72-million promotional campaign.

For the first time since such statistics have been kept, retail sales of orange juice--Florida’s premier citrus product--have declined two years in a row. So has the demand for grapefruit juice, but that is not as serious since much less of the crop goes into juice.

Orange juice is facing increased competition from other juices, diluted products and soft drinks, says Dan Gunter, executive director of the Florida Citrus Department.

Image makers have some concerns about fresh fruit too.

“Fresh citrus products lack identity, especially fresh grapefruit,” Gunter told the Florida Citrus Commission.

The department, charged with the promotion and marketing of the state’s fresh and processed citrus products, is proposing some hard-hitting programs and increased budgets for the 1988-89 season.

Merchandising and publicity campaigns are being mounted to try to persuade consumers that orange juice is just as refreshing as any other beverage and probably much better for them.

‘Gold Standard’

“We want to maintain orange juice as the gold standard of juices,” says the Citrus Department’s marketing director, Bill Gordon.

Surveys show that the orange-juice market share dropped 6 percentage points from 1980 to 1987, while apple juice gained 6 points. Orange juice sales are at 59% of the juice market, with apple juice solidifying its hold on second place at 17%.

Florida expects to produce 140 million 90-pound boxes of oranges this season, 90% of which will go into processed juices.

The current grapefruit crop is estimated at a near record 53 million 85-pound boxes, with production expected to soar to about 60 million boxes by the mid-1990s. Most of the state’s export grapefruit is grown in the Indian River section of the Citrus Belt.

Excellent growing conditions (ample rainfall early in the season and mild winter weather) have resulted in outstanding crops since the 1983 and 1985 freezes, which devastated the northern sections of the region.

“There can be little doubt left that our industry is making a strong recovery from problems encountered earlier this decade,” Gunter says.

The projected orange crop for this season would be the largest since the 1980-81 season, when 172 million boxes were picked. “The fruit just kept right on growing,” says Bob Terry, citrus statistician with the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service in Orlando.

In the coming season, the department wants to spend $39.4 million to promote orange juice sales, a 17.3% hike over the current $33.6 million.

Dour and Sour

The problem is rather more complicated with grapefruit, fresh or otherwise, since it is seen as dour and sour, an unglamorous sort of lump for today’s life styles.

A recent study shows that Americans have quit spooning up the tart fresh fruit by almost 2 pounds per capita since the 1970s. Some say it is no longer trendy and that nutrition-conscious consumers have forgotten about it in favor of more glitzy--and more heavily promoted--products.

Gunter and his crew want to “develop an image and identity” for fresh grapefruit in the modern world, making it, in computer terms, more “user friendly.”

About half of the grapefruit crop is sold as fresh fruit.

For the even more difficult job of selling pure grapefruit juice, special TV commercials are being test-marketed in support of merchandising and public relations campaigns to explain the health benefits of grapefruit juice over other juices and beverages.

The commercials emphasize the “unique,” “clean-tasting” and “invigorating” attributes of the juice and are aimed primarily at women between the ages of 25 and 54, a category of steady users.

The proposed budget for promoting processed grapefruit juice is $11.6 million, up 62.1% from the $7.2 million being spent this season.

The department’s proposed fresh fruit spending plan for 1988-89 is $21.7 million, an increase of 38.7% from the current $15.7 million.

While the domestic demand for fresh Florida grapefruit has declined, the export markets have expanded dramatically over the last two seasons, and overseas shipments are expected to set records in volume and value this year.

“I’ve never seen the situation any better,” says grower J.J. Parrish Jr. of Titusville.

Japan is by far the state’s best grapefruit customer, importing almost 9 million cartons (about 42 pounds each) last season. State citrus officials worked closely with American trade representatives, trying to persuade Japan to expand its quotas for the fruit. Japan this month agreed to remove its quotas on U.S. imports of citrus products and beef over four years.

The Citrus Department also plans a stepped-up promotion campaign in other Pacific Rim countries and Europe.

Robert Behr, state director of economic and market research, describes the problem this way:

“The question is whether we can respond to these increases in production, and help demand grow accordingly to absorb them.”