Did you know that Tropicana is owned by PepsiCo?

Did you know that Simply Orange and Minute Maid are owned by Coca-Cola?

Did you know that the above companies use oranges from other places other than the United States to make their products? Funny, their marketing makes you believe that some small local American farmer is growing those special oranges for your orange juice, well that is NOT even close.

The “juice” you are consuming from the grocery store shelves is anywhere from 12 months to 36 months old. Yes the oranges harvested for that “fresh orange juice” is up to 36 months old.

An excerpt from the smithsonianmag.com

“Alissa Hamilton's book "Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice"—released today in paperback—reveals some other truths.

Things weren't always this way. The ubiquitous presence of pasteurized orange juice in chilled cartons, all tasting basically the same, dates back only to the 1960s. That's when the FDA began regulating and standardizing orange juice, and decided what consumers did and didn't need to know about it.

As a result, despite what advertisers claim, most orange juice is neither fresh nor natural (not in the way most of us would define those terms). Think about it; how could it be truly fresh year-round, when oranges are a seasonal product? Sure, it may be "not from concentrate," but raw juice is often heated, stripped of its volatile compounds and flavor-rich oils, and stored for as long as a year before it reaches the consumer. Something called "the flavor pack" is used to return most of the "natural" aroma and taste to the product, Hamilton explains………

Often, those by-products come from other countries and may contain unknown pesticide residues, but the producers don't have to disclose that.

The bigger problem isn't juice, but rather "food ignorance." Deceptive, misleading or overly simplistic messages from both government and industry in recent decades have contributed to "the average consumer's obliviousness to where and how that individual's food is produced," Hamilton concludes, which could have serious consequences for their own health, the environment and the economy.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/squeezed-the-secrets-of-the-orange-juice-industry-86550693/#qUEuVDIQBtl8QFOd.99

An excerpt from the food renegade article on Orange juice

“THE SECRET INGREDIENT IN YOUR ORANGE JUICE

by Kristen Michaelis 468 Comments | Affiliate Disclosure

Do you buy orange juice at the store? If you do, I’m sure you’re careful to buy the kind that’s 100% juice and not made from concentrate. After all, that’s the healthier kind, right? The more natural kind? The kind without any additives? The kind that’s sold in the refrigerator section so it must be almost as good as fresh-squeezed orange juice?

If I’m describing you, then you’re either going to hate me or love me by the time you’re done reading this post. The truth is, that orange juice you feel so good about buying is probably none of those things. You’ve been making assumptions based on logic. The food industry follows its own logic because of the economies of scale. What works for you in your kitchen when making a glass or two of juice simply won’t work when trying to process thousands upon thousands of gallons of the stuff.

Haven’t you ever wondered why every glass of Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice tastes the same, no matter where in the world you buy it or what time of year you’re drinking it in? Or maybe your brand of choice is Minute Maid or Simply Orange or Florida’s Natural. Either way, I can ask the same question. Why is the taste and flavor so consistent? Why is it that the Minute Maid never tastes like the Tropicana, but always tastes like its own unique beverage?

Generally speaking, beverages that taste consistently the same follow recipes. They’re things like Coca Cola or Pepsi or a Starbucks Frappuccino. When you make orange juice at home, each batch tastes a little different depending on the oranges you made it from. I hope you’re hearing warning bells in your head right about now.

The reason your store bought orange juice is so consistently flavorful has more to do with chemistry than nature.

Making OJ should be pretty simple. Pick oranges. Squeeze them. Put the juice in a carton and voilà!

But actually, there is an important stage in between that is an open secret in the OJ industry. After the oranges are squeezed, the juice is stored in giant holding tanks and, critically, the oxygen is removed from them. That essentially allows the liquid to keep (for up to a year) without spoiling– but that liquid that we think of as orange juice tastes nothing like the Tropicana OJ that comes out of the carton. (source)

In fact, it’s quite flavorless. So, the industry uses “flavor packs” to re-flavor the de-oxygenated orange juice:

When the juice is stripped of oxygen it is also stripped of flavor providing chemicals. Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. Flavor packs aren’t listed as an ingredient on the label because technically they are derived from orange essence and oil. Yet those in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs, whether made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange juice, resemble nothing found in nature. The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans favor. Mexicans and Brazilians have a different palate. Flavor packs fabricated for juice geared to these markets therefore highlight different chemicals, the decanals say, or terpene compounds such as valencine.

The formulas vary to give a brand’s trademark taste. If you’re discerning you may have noticed Minute Maid has a candy like orange flavor. That’s largely due to the flavor pack Coca-Cola has chosen for it. Some companies have even been known to request a flavor pack that mimics the taste of a popular competitor, creating a “hall of mirrors” of flavor packs. Despite the multiple interpretations of a freshly squeezed orange on the market, most flavor packs have a shared source of inspiration: a Florida Valencia orange in spring. (source)”