Americans love OJ, just buying less

BARTOW – Despite taking a battering over its sugar content in the past several years, U.S. consumers by more than 80 percent still perceive orange juice as a healthy beverage.

Unfortunately for Florida orange growers, that positive perception isn’t helping retail OJ sales, which showed a 7.6 percent volume decline so far in the 2018-19 season following a 5 percent decline in the previous season.

Factors other than consumer perceptions, such as smaller carton sizes, affect the sales numbers, said Marisa Zansler, chief economist at the Florida Department of Citrus.

The Florida Citrus Commission, the department’s governing body, on Wednesday heard the latest research on consumer trends in the domestic OJ market from Rebecca Mark, vice president at Porter Novelli, a New York City-based public relations firm. Mark presented results from an online national survey of 3,561 U.S. adults conducted in the fall.

Oranges constitute Florida’s largest citrus crop by far, and 95 percent of the state’s annual harvest goes to juice. Orange juice is the focus of the Citrus Department’s online marketing program.

The latest survey shows 82 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “100 percent orange juice is healthy,” including 32 percent who strongly agree, Mark said. That’s consistent with previous Porter Novelli surveys over two years, although down slightly from 86 percent in the spring 2017.

“We’re solidly in that 80 percent range over the years,” she said.

The finding is significant because a segment of the public health community has advised against drinking OJ because of its sugar content, warning mothers in particular about serving it to their children. The Citrus Department counters with marketing messages stressing OJ’s nutritional benefits, such as vitamin C and folate.

That message is getting through to a large segment of U.S. consumers.

Porter Novelli found 48 percent of respondents in the recent survey agreed that OJ’s nutrient content overrides concerns about sugar. That compares with 22 percent who said OJ has too much sugar and 30 percent who were not sure.

Those numbers also consistently lie in the range of past surveys, Mark said. Two years earlier, 51 percent felt better about OJ’s nutrition while 19 percent thought it had too much sugar.

And the numbers are slightly better among Millennial moms, the target demographic for the Citrus Department’s marketing efforts. The Millennial generation was born roughly between 1980 and 2000.

In the most recent survey, 50 percent of Millennial moms agreed OJ nutrition outweighs sugar content while 23 percent felt it had too much sugar. That’s down from 57 percent in the nutritional group in the fall 2016 survey versus 24 percent who expressed concern about sugar.

Millennial moms have to be targeted consistently to maintain the 2016 levels in that category, Mark said.

“Millennial moms outperform all adults and outperform women in general,” she said. “If you stop talking to them, they slide.”

That’s shown in survey result on women younger than 40 with a college degree responding to the statement “I feel good about serving 100 percent OJ to my family or friends.”

Among those women, 46 percent strongly agreed two years ago but only 32 percent last fall. The number of strongly agreeing Millennial moms drop from 41 percent to 30 percent.

“Young women under age 40 with a college degree, this is where you have a challenge,” Mark said.

Among other results in the latest Porter Novelli survey, 40 percent of all respondents agreed they liked the taste of OJ “a great deal.”

Some 21 percent of Millennial moms reported drinking OJ at least once a week while 58 percent saw it as a “great source of vitamins and nutrients.” Only 25 percent saw OJ as “convenient,” up from 17 percent two years ago.

In its regular monthly report on retail OJ sales in U.S. supermarkets, sales by the gallon fell 8.3 percent for the four-week period ending Dec. 22 and dropped 7.6 percent for the 2018-19 season beginning Oct. 1. The average price per gallon rose 4.4 percent during the recent month and 4.2 percent for the season.

One factor behind the OJ sales decline is the drastic decline in Florida’s orange production following the arrival of the fatal bacterial disease citrus greening in the fall 2005, Zansler said.

Florida’s citrus harvest has declined by more than 70 percent since 2005 and took a further significant tumble last year because of Hurricane Irma.

The smaller orange harvests mean less OJ production at Florida’s citrus processing plants, Zansler said. OJ imports can make up for just some of that shortfall.

“The decline in availability is a huge factor,” she said.

Another factor is the processing industry’s decision to reduce the size of its standard OJ container from 59 ounces to 52 ounces at the end of the 2017-18 season, Zansler added. That’s an 11 percent drop in volume.

Without the reduction in carton size, drop in OJ sales for the latest four-week period would have been about 3 percent, she estimated.

In other business, Chris Groom, the vice president of sales and marketing at Florida’s Natural Growers, the Lake Wales juice processor, took the oath of office as the newest Citrus Commission member. Joining him in taking the oath was Arcadia grower V.C. Hollingsworth, who was reappointed to a new three-term on the commission.

Former Gov. Rick Scott appointed both men before he left office to take his seat in the U.S. Senate. Groom took the seat formerly held by Carlos Martinez, an executive with the Coca-Cola Co., which owns the Minute Maid juice brand.

Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or at 863-802-7591.