Icy Chill May Warm Florida

The blizzards that have frozen the East Coast pose a problem for Florida citrus growers in the short term, but in the long run they may prove to be a bonanza.

After all, chilly wet weather is invariably followed by colds and the flu. And that means increasing sales of Vitamin C-rich fruit.

“People start thinking they’ve got to get their Vitamin C because of the cruddy weather, then they discover it really tastes good,” says Doug Hunt, director of international marketing for the Florida Department of Citrus.

As a result, prices for Florida fruit--grapefruit in particular--are climbing out of their early season doldrums just as the harvest begins to hit its peak. The amount of grapefruit picked and the wholesale price have doubled since the beginning of January.

That means prices are higher than they have been for several years. But they are still short of prices in the 1980s, when freezes in Texas, California and northern Florida combined to shrink the crop, driving up prices.

Seeing money to be made, growers planted more trees. And that--when added to the fruit coming out of the recovered orchards--created an oversupply of grapefruit until this year.

Making matters even worse was the incredible growth in winter fruit choices. In the old days, say 10 years ago, citrus was about the only fresh fruit available during January and February (apples and pears come out of controlled atmosphere storage at this time of year).

Now, of course, you can get everything from papayas to peaches, thanks in large part to fruit imported from Central and South America.

Florida, which grows more than a third of all the grapefruit in the world, is returning the favor. More than half of the state’s fresh grapefruit is sold outside this country, with Japan taking almost half of that.

“And there it’s not even considered a breakfast item,” Hunt says. “It’s consumed as an evening dessert product, or maybe a little bite to have before you go to bed, after you take a hot bath.”

There’s a trick to picking a good grapefruit, says Doug Bournique, executive director of the Indian River Citrus League. “Finding a good, flat piece of fruit is important. A great grapefruit will not be completely round, it will have slightly flat ends. It should look kind of like two bowls stuck together.

“Then look for the thickness of the peel. Sometimes you’ve got real pretty fruit, but the skin is about a half-inch thick. You want paper-thin skin, so you’re getting more fruit. Finally, feel the weight of it. If a grapefruit feels real heavy, it’s got a lot of juice inside.”