These days the world is facing lots of challenges from inflation to quite unexpected problems. For instance, citrus lovers will have to spend more to get orange juice due to ruined crops in many countries.
Klaus Heitlinger, the Managing Director of the Association of the German Fruit Juice Industry, was one of the first to voice the issue. Having carefully studied the official statistics of the citrus harvest, Kightlinger came to the conclusion that the world would face a citrus shortage. It will trigger a surge in the price of orange juice concentrate. Low fruit yield in Brazil will have negative consequences for the whole world because the country is the largest supplier of natural orange concentrate. The problem is aggravated by the weak performance of other global suppliers. For example, in the United States, hurricanes and plant diseases have also led to a sharp decline in yields. Adverse weather conditions affected the harvest of oranges in Mexico and Spain. The indicators of harvesting crops in these countries turned out to be below average.
So far, markets have not had enough time to realize the scale of the problem. Over the year, the cost of a pound (453 grams) of frozen orange juice concentrate has risen by almost a third - to 2.73 from $2.02. In late May, the price almost reached a high of $2.94. At the start of 2022, a pound of orange concentrate juice cost only $1.42. If low yields in Brazil and the United States persist next year, this could further exacerbate the crisis in the global citrus market. "We are in the most difficult situation for more than 50 years. With the crop failures in the US and the historically low stocks in Brazil, a hitherto unique market situation has developed as a result of which the availability of orange juice concentrate is currently massively limited", Klaus Heitlinger noted.
