While Florida's citrus growers are said to have enjoyed a good season with a high quality crop, a declining level of orange juice consumption is posing a challenge for the industry. 

All but 5% of the state's orange crop is sent for juicing, but Florida Citrus Mutual communications director Andrew Meadows said increased competition in the beverage sector meant sales were suffering.

In addition, citrus greening disease, or HLB, has had major effects on the citrus industry over recent years leading to lower production and higher prices for consumers.

"It's been a good season, but we're definitely facing some challenges both on the production side and the demand side. With the smaller crop the prices increase - we're about US$6.50 for a gallon of orange juice on average at retail," Meadows told www.freshfruitportal.com.

"There's significant competition in the beverage aisle that there hadn't been years ago, even a couple of years ago, with the energy drinks and the sports drinks, and the flavored waters - these are all competing for the consumer and that's certainly affected orange juice consumption as well."

He said the sector had also taken some hits with regard to orange juice's sugar content and calorie count, but emphasized it was certainly healthier than many soft drinks or soda.

"We've got vitamin C, folic acid, potassium - so there's a lot of goodness that comes with those calories as well," he said.

Despite the problems facing the sector, Meadows said there was still good news to be spread.

"Florida has very high standards and even in the face of these challenges, with the smaller crop, it's still very much a quality crop." he said.

Florida's citrus season is almost finished, with only a few weeks of mainly late-season Valencia oranges and some grapefruit left to be harvested.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released an updated estimate for the 2014-15 crop, which was roughly in line with pre-season predictions.

The orange crop remained steady at 102 million boxes - a little bit down on last campaign's 104 million - while grapefruit decreased from the 15 million predicted last October to 13 million now.

"The positive news is the orange crop estimate remained stable and that's a good thing," Florida Citrus Mutual CEO Michael W. Sparks said in a release.

"Let's hope our late varieties continue to hold up and we don't lose any more fruit. Even in these challenging times Florida growers produce the best citrus in the world."

On the subject of research into solutions for HLB, Meadows said while there had not yet been a 'silver bullet', some things were looking promising.

"Growers have spent over US$90 million over the last nine years to fund research, and there are a couple of things that have come out that look promising.

"There's been some restocks that are tolerant to greening that have been found, so we're starting to utilize those. Heat treatment has shown promise where you actually heat the tree and that knocks back the bacteria. There are also some antibacterials that are promising.

"So there are some good avenues out there that we're looking at. There's more than 100 projects out there worldwide that are focusing on the disease."

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