Citrus Hill was a brand of

orange juice Orange juice is a liquid extract of the orange tree fruit, produced by squeezing or reaming oranges. It comes in several different varieties, including blood orange, navel oranges, valencia orange, clementine, and tangerine. As well as vari ...

introduced by

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

market in 1982, later used for other fruit juices and beverages. The launch of Citrus Hill occurred when P&G acquired Florida-based Ben Hill Griffin Inc. and created a brand to sell its juice products under, with national distribution. This thrust P&G into the competitive orange juice market, dominated by

Minute Maid Minute Maid is a product line of beverages, usually associated with lemonade or orange juice, but which now extends to soft drinks of different kinds, including Hi-C. Minute Maid is sold under the Cappy brand in Central Europe and under the bra ...

and

Tropicana Products Tropicana Brands (''pronounced as'' traa·puh·ka·nuh) is a former American fruit-based beverage company. It was founded in 1947 by Anthony T. Rossi in Bradenton, Florida. Between 1998 and 2021 it was a subsidiary of PepsiCo, but in August 2021 ...

. Procter & Gamble hoped to differentiate Citrus Hill from the other major brands by marketing it as a premium product, based on a their patented freeze-concentration process that retained more volatile organic aroma compounds associated with fresh-squeezed juice than did the industry-standard evaporative heat concentration (US Patents 4,463,025; 4,818,555; 4,889,739; 4,938,985; 4, 971,813; and 4,971,811). That proved unsuccessful in a segment with technology limiting the 1980s orange juice market to made-from-concentrate products of generally equal quality differentiated by price and perceived value. Citrus Hill had the distinction of introducing the first calcium-enriched orange juice in 1986, which was largely met with indifference from consumers. Citrus Hill would trudge along in a distant third place throughout its life, and a desperate attempt at rebranding would spell the demise for the brand. In 1990, Citrus Hill changed the name of its orange juice to Citrus Hill Fresh Select, with the word "Fresh" emphasized boldly and a small disclaimer stating that it was "Fresh from Concentrate." In June 1990, Commissioner

David Aaron Kessler David Aaron Kessler (born May 13, 1951) is an American pediatrician, attorney, author, and administrator (both academic and governmental) serving as Chief Science Officer of the White House COVID-19 Response Team since 2021. Kessler was the commi ...

of the

Food & Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food s ...

declared that the use of "fresh" was a misnomer and a violation of 1963 rules governing processed orange juice, which P&G denied. The FDA would exchange correspondence with Procter & Gamble from that point forward while Citrus Hill continued with the same marketing, but negotiations broke down on April 24, 1991. The same day, the FDA seized 12,000 gallons of Fresh Select orange juice from a warehouse in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

stating that it was improperly labeled and that their claims of "fresh" were false advertising. P&G agreed to stop using the term "fresh" to describe its juice, but at that point, the seizure had become headline news nationwide. Footage of Citrus Hill juice being seized during television news broadcasts and in newspaper pictures decimated consumer confidence in the brand and affected sales heavily. The brand was gradually wound down, and efforts to find a buyer proved unsuccessful. In 1994, PepsiCo would license the Citrus Hill brand for a line of fruit-flavoured fountain beverages, which ended when Pepsi acquired Tropicana in 1998 and rebranded the drink line to the Tropicana brand. The former Citrus Hill processing facility in Florida is now owned by Cargill.

References

{{Procter & Gamble Products introduced in 1983 Procter & Gamble brands Juice brands Lemonade Products and services discontinued in 1992