Is Florida running out of orange juice? Record prices put the squeeze on consumers

theguardian.com:

Has breakfast in the US ever been this expensive? The recent eggflation seen across the country has caused an uproar, and now orange juice is adding to the financial pain.

Orange juice futures – contracts to buy and sell OJ – have almost doubled to $2.60 per pound over the last year, up from $1.40 a year ago, leading to price surges in stores. In January, orange juice not from concentrate hit $10 a gallon, while juice from concentrate hit $6.27 per gallon.

The increase has not gone unnoticed. “This is my favorite,” a TikTok user in a grocery store says as he holds up a glistening 89-fluid-ounce orange juice bottle in a video posted last month. “Simply Orange juice: $7. That’s simply too high.”

The price increase highlights a serious problem for Florida – the state that is synonymous with the orange and produces the most orange juice in the country.

This season the US agriculture department predicts the state will produce 16m 90lb boxes of oranges, a 61% drop compared with last season when the state produced 41m boxes. It’s a worrying decrease but nothing compared with the fall from its peak in the 1990s when the state was producing 200m boxes a year.

“While the current crop size is a real disappointment, we’re not giving up,” Matt Joyner, CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, a trade association, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Florida’s woes have opened up an opportunity forBrazil, the world’s largest exporter of orange juice. Orange juice shipments from that country were up 58% in the first four months of this season as Florida oranges saw a small yield.

Over the last decade the state has ramped up efforts to protect its industry, which is vulnerable to extreme weather events like hurricanes and has been experiencing a pandemic of