Citrus Department to Challenge Labeling of Low-carb Juices




By Mike Schneider
AP Business Writer
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; 5:36 PM

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) -- Florida's Department of Citrus wants to put the squeeze on producers of low-carb orange juice, claiming their labels confuse consumers into believing they're purchasing 100 percent juice when buying a product that's 42 percent juice.

The department plans to file a complaint with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and later seek a rule change that would require beverages to list juice content on the front package rather than on the side where it's displayed currently. The juice is diluted with water and other ingredients that the makers say are proprietary.

The Florida Citrus Commission, which governs the department, on Wednesday voted 11-1 to spend $207,700 toward the relabeling efforts.

The single dissenting commissioner, William Ferrari, warned that the action could antagonize the nation's two biggest sellers of orange juice -- Tropicana Products and Minute Maid -- at a time when Florida's citrus industry is trying to recover from declining orange juice sales with a new television campaign.

"It's going to be divisive," said Ferrari, vice president of global citrus procurement at Tropicana. "It goes against the concept of trying to grow the market."

PepsiCo-owned Tropicana has a 40 percent share of the orange juice market and buys one out of every three Florida oranges.

Since it was introduced 11 months ago, Tropicana's Light 'n Healthy has had more than $26 million in sales and represents about 2 percent of the overall juice category.

"Our packaging is very clear and contains the facts, including juice content for people to make an informed decision," said Tropicana spokesman Peter Brace. "Given the significant issues the industry is facing, we think time is better spent focusing on those things ... that grow the overall category."

Coca Cola-owned Minute Maid also introduced earlier this year its own low-carb juice, Minute Maid Premium Light, in response to consumers on Atkins-style diets who have stopped drinking orange juice because of its carbohydrate and sugar content.

"If someone has walked away from the category entirely, we would rather bring them back by selling them one unit with half the juice than no units with 100 percent juice," Charles Torrey, Coca-Cola North America group director wrote a citrus department official in a letter last week.

But citrus department officials said they're goal isn't to thwart growth in the low-carb juice market but rather to stop consumer confusion they have documented in market research. The decade-old federal food labeling requirements aren't able to keep pace with a wide range of new juice products coming into the market, they said.

"We don't have an objection to the consumers having the option of buying the diluted products," said Dan Gunter, executive director of the Department of Citrus. "Our point is that there are consumers out there picking up this product thinking their buying 100 percent juice. All we're looking to do is provide labeling that clarifies what's in the package."

Sean Thomas is one of the consumers Gunter has in mind. Staring at the shelves of colorfully differentiated orange juice cartons in the chilled juice section of a Winter Park grocery store recently, Thomas said he couldn't pick the low-carb juice.

"I wouldn't know the difference just by looking at it," he said.

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Thanks 4beans!

Sounds to me like they just want to sell more sugar-water.

People might actually drink something with less sugar! Horrors!

If consumer confusion is their true concern, why haven't they stopped the clearly incorrect "100% Juice!" labeling on all of the products that are actually reconstituted or have other added ingredients (such as vitamin C)?

Does anyone have an idea as to what these proprietary diluters are?