Florida's Natural Growers (stylized "Florida^✾s Natural") is an agricultural cooperative based in Lake Wales, Florida. It is currently owned by over 1,100 grower members. It was the only national

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 ...

maker that uses only US-grown fruit (grown by its cooperative members in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

) in its products.

History

Florida's Natural Growers was founded in 1933 as Florida Citrus Canners Cooperative. Its initial operations included canning juice and grapefruit sections for its members, and in 1938 began extracting juice with automated machines. During World War II, the company produced concentrated orange juice for the military; after the war, 80% of the juice the company produced was in frozen concentrate form to meet consumer demand for the relatively new, convenient form. In the 1960s, consumer demand shifted to ready-to-drink orange juice, and frozen concentrate sales declined while demand for chilled juices increased. In 1969, the cooperative took the name Citrus World and adopted the current name, Florida's Natural Growers, in 1998. It is currently composed of 12 representatives of 14 citrus cooperatives: Waverly Growers Cooperative, Lake Placid Cooperative, Ben Hill Griffin Inc., Haines City Citrus Growers Association, Orange Growers Marketing Association, Lake Wales Citrus Growers Association, Hunt Brothers Cooperative, Citrus Marketing Services Inc, Peace River Packing Company, Dundee Citrus Growers Association, Winter Haven Citrus Growers Association, and Umatilla Citrus Growers Association, Southern Gardens Citrus Growers, and Lykes. In 2001, the company opened the "Grove House", a visitor's center across the street from its Lake Wales, Florida processing plant. The Grove House is open Monday through Friday 10 am to 5 pm, and is closed from Memorial Day through the last day of September.

Products and marketing

Florida's Natural produces

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. The genus ''Citrus'' is native to ...

juices (mainly

and lemonades) under the Florida's Natural, Coral Reef Juice Co. and Donald Duck brand names. The company's primary marketing strategy is to differentiate itself from main competitors Simply Orange,

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 Tropicana may refer to: Companies *Tropicana Entertainment, a former casino company that owned several Tropicana-branded casinos *Tropicana Products, a Chicago-based food company known for orange juice Hotels and nightclubs *Tropicana Casino & Re ...

. It does this by emphasizing its cooperative organization ("Florida's Natural. Together, from Tree to Table"). By comparison, Simply Orange and Minute Maid are both owned by

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...

, while Tropicana is owned in a joint venture by French private equity firm, PAI Partners with PepsiCo keeping a 39% non-controlling stake. As a citrus cooperative cooperative, Florida's Natural uses citrus grown by its cooperative members in Central and South Florida in its products, and seeks to provide the maximum return for fruit to its members, supporting these citrus growers and their families. [Note: As of about June 2022, Florida's Natural changed the label on the front and back panels of its orange juice cartons. The label now reads: "100% Premium Orange Juice, From Concentrate with Calcium & Vitamin D, A premium blend of our Florida not-from-concentrate orange juice and the best orange juice from Mexico". On a side panel, it is further explained: "...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...." In the past, Florida's Natural was labeled as "not-from-concentrate", but apparently the addition of some percentage of concentrate (from Mexico) now requires it to be labeled as "concentrate".]

References

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External links

Florida's NaturalDisney-branded juice drinks
1933 establishments in Florida Juice brands Agricultural marketing cooperatives Companies based in Polk County, Florida Lake Wales, Florida Organizations established in 1933 Agricultural cooperatives in the United States Citrus industry in Florida