Citrus Semi-annual updates: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Morocco and EU

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The Brazilian orange crop for Marketing Year (MY) 2023/24 is forecast at 378 million 90-pound boxes (MBx) - standard reference, equivalent to 15.42 million metric tons (MMT), a decrease of 7.3 percent compared to previous Post estimate (408 million boxes or 16.5 MMT), primarily due to poor weather conditions that culminated in a more severe drought, as well as impacts from greening.

For marketing year (MY) 2023/24, Post updates fresh lemon production down to 1,700 metric tons (MT). This revision is attributed to the unexpected weather conditions with temperatures higher than usual and rains during harvest that affected original production estimates. Post also updates MY 2022/23 production to 1,850 MT, attributed to severe drought conditions than initially expected. For MY 2023/24, fresh orange production is estimated to drop to 653,000 MT. Similarly, fresh tangerine production is expected to decrease to 280,000 MT.

In marketing year (MY) 2023/24, with an increasing trend in area planted and assuming regular yields, Post estimates lemon production to grow by 6.7 percent and reach 175,000 (MT) metric tons. Chilean lemon exports will increase 8.8 percent, totaling 74,000 metric tons. In MY 2023/24, Post estimates lower orange area planted due to continued tight margins. As such, Chilean orange production will decrease by 1.6 percent and total 177,000 metric tons.

Post production forecasts for tangerines/mandarins, oranges, lemons, and orange juice remain unchanged from the December 20 Annual Citrus Report.

In MY 2023/24, the drop registered in EU orange and mandarin production was not compensated by the larger lemon and grapefruit output. EU citrus production is concentrated in the Mediterranean region. Spain and Italy represent the leading EU citrus producers, followed by Greece, Portugal, and Cyprus.

In November last year Food Standards New Zealand (FSNZ) required Ārepa to publish notices stating some of the claims it was making about its products were “unsubstantiated”, marking the first public stumble for a drink-maker who had ridden a wave of positive media coverage since its founding in 2017 that had seen the company last year mull a $100 million capital raise to finance global expansion.The notices followed disquiet among elements of the scientific community that there was a lack of solid support for the company’s claims that its blackcurrant-based drinks and powders boosted mental and athletic performance.

Following the notices, the company’s bottles featuring the contentious advertising suddenly were reduced to clear in supermarket aisles. Co-founder Angus Brown doesn’t shy away from describing how brutal the recent reality-check has been.“It was really tough.

As one of the fastest growing non-alcoholic beverage brands, Liquid Death uses comedy and entertainment 'to make health and sustainability 50 times more fun'.

The brand hit $263m in retail scanned sales in 2023 and expanded to 113,000 retail doors across the US and UK (where it debuted last year). It achieved triple-digit growth for the third consecutive year, becoming the fastest growing top water brand, according to SPINS.

In March, it closed $67m in financing and announced a $1.4bn valuation. And its social following captures a cool 7.9 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, making it the third most followed beverage globally (behind only Red Bull and Monster).

After 10 years working in advertising creative, Mike Cessario founded Liquid Death in 2018 and is the CEO of the Santa Monica, California-headquartered company. He tells BeverageDaily what the secret to success has been.

Beverage manufacturers are aiming to satisfy consumer interest in convenience, health and wellness, and functional benefits with their latest product launches.

PepsiCo, Inc. and Lipton partnership brand Pure Leaf responded to consumers conscious of their calories and sugar intake with its first sugar-free, zero calorie drink. The beverage combines a black tea blend with sucralose sweeteners to deliver a formulation free from artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and concentrates. Each 18.5-oz bottle also contains 69 mgs of caffeine.

While collagen has long been used in beauty products, it has become a key element of new beverage lines that often feature marine-derived collagen, from brands like gldn hour and gnusante. According to Allied Market Research, the global collagen drinks industry generated nearly $275 million in 2020 and is expected to reach $831.8 million by 2030, growing at an annual rate of 12.7%.

Peru’s fresh lemon exports have shown impressive growth in the first quarter of 2024, maintaining a steady pace with monthly shipments consistently exceeding $5 million. By the end of March, the total volume of citrus exports reached 15,540 tons, valued at $15.7 million. This marks a notable 10 percent increase in volume and a 5 percent rise in value compared to the same period last year, as reported by AgroPeru Informa. These figures highlight Peru's growing influence in the global citrus market.

The shortage has brought changes, including challenges and opportunities, for businesses to consider.

“Given the stretch of orange resources, it is indeed costlier to produce our flavor and ingredient offerings. While we have not had supply issues as an active buyer of oranges, we are working with customers to adjust their orange portfolios to the current market conditions. This can also lead to a reformulation of the products,” Karel Coosemans explains.

One notable outcome of the shortage has been the higher demand for Not From Concentrate (NFC).

The model demonstrated a high accuracy rate of 97.6275%, confirming its precision and reliability in assessing citrus freshness. This synergy between advanced neural network processing and spectroscopic techniques marks a significant advancement in agricultural quality assessment, setting new standards for speed and efficiency in data processing.

As a typical bioflavonoid, diosmetin is desirable in the field of natural medicine, healthy food, and cosmetics by anti-cancer, antibacterial, antioxidant, estrogen-like and anti-inflammatory activities, and it comes from a wide range of sources in traditional Chinese medicine like spider fragrance, spearmint and chrysanthemum, as well as in Citrus fruit.

The results of this investigation provide a promising adsorbent for selective enrichment of diosmetin from Citrus fruit and complicated materials.

This novel method using portable miniature mass spectrometry for swift on-site analysis of tangerine peels enabled the characterization of 22 compounds in less than one minute per sample. The method simplifies sample processing and integrates machine learning to distinguish between the CP, QP, and GCP varieties. Moreover, a multiple-perceptron neural network model is further employed to specifically differentiate between CP and GCP, addressing the significant price gap between them.