Orange juice doesn’t taste so good when brand-name bottles approach $7. According to a recent ABC News report, “In the U.S., a 12-ounce can of frozen orange juice concentrate cost an average of $4.27 in April, 42 percent more than during the same month a year earlier, according to government figures. … Orange juice consumption has fallen 15 percent to 25 percent in major global markets — including the United States and the European Union — over the last year.”
Bad weather and disappointing harvests are battering supply, and recently released Freedom of Information Act records show outdated federal regulations and a regulatory turf war are making the problem even worse. Policymakers need to peel back onerous rules and let the juice flow.
Out-of-control regulations have ensnared a simple beverage in a pulpy web of administrative compliance. The Food and Drug Administration maintains “standards of identity” for various foods and beverages, specifying specific attributes a product must have to earn a particular food label. For example, the FDA has long maintained that frozen cherry pies must contain enough cherries (by weight) and cannot contain too many blemished cherries.
Orange juice standards are even more convoluted. The FDA pays close attention to the “Brix level” of pasteurized orange juice, which measures the internal sugar solids in a fruit. The agency considers anything less than a 10.5 percent Brix level unacceptable, resulting in orange juice makers having to be increasingly picky about the oranges they use.
The Florida Citrus Processors Association and Florida Citrus Mutual noted in a July 2022 petition to the FDA that “since 2005, Florida’s orange trees have been increasingly infected by Huanglongbing (HLB or citrus greening disease). … Experts do not expect the average Brix level to return to previous averages without resolution of HLB, which remains incurable.
While California’s orange crops are primarily produced for the fresh market, citrus processors use almost the entire Florida orange crop to produce “not from concentrate” pasteurized orange juice. As a result, manufacturers face the increasingly difficult choice of increasing cultivation costs or avoiding calling their product “orange juice,” which would make for a very confusing shopping experience.
The FDA took more than a year to examine the petition, and even then, responded by requesting information from interested parties rather than taking concrete action. Frustratingly, the process remains in limbo.
Recently, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance Foundation requested internal FDA correspondence to shed light on the turtleneck speed of reform. The resulting trove of information gave critical insight into the process. Since 2022, FDA employees have been busily working on the petition and verifying that the nutrition data submitted by the petitioners was accurate. The Achilles’ heel has unexpectedly been the Department of Agriculture, which must be “kept in the loop.”
When the FDA contacted the USDA and asked if there would be “any concerns” if “we remove the minimum Brix level for orange juice,” the USDA tersely responded that the policy change “would not be consistent with the Codex standard, because 10 Brix is the absolute minimum requirement.”
The USDA has its own minimum requirements for juice Brix content, and the FDA cannot force its counterpart’s hand. This doesn’t seem likely to change soon because, as one FDA employee notes to another, “I am not aware that Codex is currently working on any updates to the standard.”
These frustrating exchanges offer a sobering lesson for businesses and their consumers. Prominent agencies such as the FDA may want to make pro-consumer changes, only to be stymied by regulators lurking in the background. Meanwhile, petitions sit on the sidelines as agencies half-heartedly request more information.
Unfortunately, these bureaucratic machinations are not “pulp fiction.” Consumers can expect sky-high orange juice prices until regulators stop souring on promising reforms.
