The price of orange juice has fallen dramatically, making commodity price charts resemble a steep hill followed by a sheer cliff face.
After steadily increasing for well over two years, orange juice prices have fallen by 50.44% since the start of the year, according to Trading Economics. It is predicted to fall even further by the end of the year.
What factors have led to this sudden drop?
Why was the price rising?
According to Trading Economics, the price of orange juice reached an all-time high of 589 USD/Lbs in September 2024. The price had been rising for quite some time.
The sector, concentrated mostly in the US and Brazil, has experienced hardships, with oranges hit by a combination of bad weather, including flooding and hurricanes, and diseases such as citrus greening disease.
This pushed orange juice costs so high, manufacturers were forced to pass them onto consumers.
However, this year, we saw a different story.
Why has the price of orange juice dropped?
The price of orange juice stopped climbing and began to dramatically fall just before the start of 2025. One of the reasons for this is the significant fall in demand.
High prices and the poor quality of orange juice have led to this decreased demand. According to the Center for Advanced Studies on Applied Economics (Cepea) from the University of São Paulo, major players have said that the orange sugar/acid ratio was below the desirable level for crushing activities, decreasing quality.
Furthermore, the fruits have had an excess of limonin, a bitter compound commonly found in citrus fruits, due to ‘heterogenous’ harvesting. This has increased the juice’s bitterness and decreased consumer acceptance in major markets such as the UK and US.
This low quality has also reduced exports from Brazil significantly. According to Capea, the July 2024 to January 2025 period has seen exports of not-from-concentrate 3.4% lower than in the period the previous year.
Another reason for the price decreases, reports Food Manufacture, is an exceptionally large crop in Spain, one of orange juice’s biggest exporters.
According to UK blender Gerald McDonald, Spanish orange production has been ramped up to maximum capacity, and North African sources have been eliminated.
According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Egyptian orange production is down by 12%.
What will production look like in 2025?
In January 2025, the USDA predicted that the global production of orange juice will increase by 4% in 2024/5, to 1.4m tons.
It also predicts a favourable harvest from Brazil in oranges, as well as an increase in orange juice production by 9%. This comes on top of an increase by 4% in South Africa and Mexico. Conversely, EU production is predicted to go down by 7%, and US production by a whopping 28%.
