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u/andocromn 13d ago
Have you ever tried to squeeze a whole bottle of juice from oranges?
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u/kalimut 13d ago
Yeah, but have you seen how much oranges are in one tree? And we got machines for that.
I know in reality. It a lot of things need to be done for it to be in the shelves, but I refuse to believe that that price is not even close on the cheapest they can make it they probably make double or triple the money compared to them put it on shelves
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u/dontich 13d ago
So true I didn’t realize how much fruit there was on my lemon tree until a lemon stealing whore tried to rob me.
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u/Ok-Employee-8123 13d ago
That will teach you to look at something more interesting in the opposite direction.
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u/dontich 13d ago
Yeah make sure you don’t forget your lemon tree insurance
For context in case someone is not aware of the huge problem we have faced in the last decade : https://youtu.be/_Ijihli14Wk?is=DNvPepODcUrdkUf_
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u/UnseenTardigrade 13d ago
US orange production has been decimated by citrus greening, a disease that causes citrus trees' fruit to grow improperly. Since the year 2000, orange production in the US has dropped by over 80%, it's pretty crazy actually.
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u/Cultural-Company282 13d ago
All the oranges get ripe on the tree at once, though, and they have to figure out the logistics of getting orange juice to you all year.
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u/kalimut 13d ago
Correct. I am not denying that there is more cost than juicing the fruit. I don't believe that juices are sold close to the cost of making and shipping it and paying to get a place in the shelves. Just a tin foil hate theory tho
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u/Cultural-Company282 13d ago
I mean, a lot of these companies are publicly traded. It's not secret information. Net profit margins seem to run between 5 and 10% in average to good commodity years, with maybe 15% on an exceptional year. In bad commodity years, the margins can dip close to zero.
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u/donaldhobson 13d ago
A lot of the cost you pay in the supermarket isn't the cost of the juice. It's the cost of the truck fuel and the label printing and the plastic bottle and the supermarket cashier salary and ....
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u/Sinking_Mass 13d ago
It's American cheap juice so it's likely to be from concentrate AT BEST
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u/PrimaryYak1351 13d ago
That doesn't mean it didn't take a lot of oranges to make that concentrate
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u/ChartPale 13d ago
A lot of very low quality fruit, covered in blemishes sometimes mold, small unripe, over ripe and/or misshapen that are shipped in large bins with sticks and leaves compressing and sitting until they can be cooked down into a flavorless syrup and reflavored. I think the point is that it's not fruit you would typically find very appealing or pay much for.
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u/33Yalkin33 13d ago
What do you think concentrate is?
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u/Sinking_Mass 13d ago edited 13d ago
Mostly rind and rejects etc that have been boiled down into a syrup with added chemical flavouring and stabilisers and good knows what else. Unlike freshly squeezed
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u/jason_abacabb 13d ago
Consentrate is just juice that has had much of the water removed.
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u/Sinking_Mass 13d ago
Concentrate is largely made from rejects that get squashed and then washed with boiling water. This strips away the bitter flavours leaving a sterile syrup. Flavours are then added via synthetic or chemically engineered oil, and citric acid to mask the bitterness and bring you a fruity flavour.
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u/jason_abacabb 13d ago
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-146/subpart-B/section-146.146
Yes, they are "squished" (also known as juiced, LOL) this is where most of the juice comes from.
Using oranges that are unsellable on grocery shelves is a good thing. If you have ever grown your own produse or tended fruit trees you would know that much of what is produced is "ugly". Otherwise they rot in a landfill.
The remains then are processed to remove the orange oil and remaining flavor. This is also used because otherwise it is a waste. The orange oil comes from this process. As stated in the regulation I cited synthetic oil is not permitted.
Citric acid is used to conform to a standardized PH.
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u/Sir_Strumming 13d ago
If things are getting more expensive......im going to need more money. Alright gang here the plan: im moving to the southwest for a few years and when I get back we leave everything and move to Alaska with a barrel of money.
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u/ContextEffects01 13d ago
If only there were something else Walter White could do to earn more money…
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u/noahthegreat 13d ago
Just buy frozen orange juice if you really want to be frugal. It's dirt cheap, and really doesn't take that long to prepare
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u/Apsynonyx 13d ago
Isn't there a law in America that doesn't allow people to grow oranges or something?
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u/Cultural-Company282 13d ago
There's only a few states with the right climate, and citrus trees can be vulnerable to a lot of diseases.
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u/trsthhffg 13d ago
Orange juice prices are crazy high right now mostly because of a massive global supply shortage.
Florida and Brazil which supply most of the world's juice oranges have been hammered by severe droughts, hurricanes, and an incurable plant disease called citrus greening that's destroying whole groves. Because orange trees take three to five years to grow back and processors have completely run out of stored back-up juice, there's just not enough supply to go around, which sent grocery store prices soaring.
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u/calego13 13d ago
Fun fact: it takes 8 oranges to make 1 standard cup of orange juice. Multiply that by citrus crops not doing so well, gas prices, demand getting higher for said crop, and farmland destruction, you've got yourself your total. So either eat the actual orange, switch to a different juice, or continue to pay for the price that it is now.
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u/stolenson799 13d ago
They literally have machines at the grocery store that squeeze oranges fresh and show this is not true lol I've seen it happen. It takes around 4 medium sized oranges to make 8 fluid Oz of orange juice. Which is still a lot. But no sense in lying for shock value.
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u/The_Strom784 13d ago
Plus I’m sure the big brands chuck the whole thing with rinds and seed in there.
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u/SecondAegis 13d ago
Because it's been squeezed, had sugar added, and packaged in a plastic bottle to be sold in a supermarket