ASME 1993 Citrus Engineering Conference CEC1993 March 25, 1993, Lakeland, Florida, USA CEC1993-3906 Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

CITRUS JUICE PROCESSING IN

by Daniel S. Marques Manager Industrial Research and Development Sucocitrico Cutrale Ltda. Araraquara, S.P. Brazil

ABSTRACT The evolution of the Brazilian citrus processing industry is revised and the new trends are discussed. The production of Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice (FCOJ) in Brazil, mainly in the State of SBo Paulo is outlined.

Comments on the technology and management strategies that have been used to keep the competitive position of the Brazilian citrus industry will be addressed.

Special attention is dedicated to the constraints and the new opportunities that this important sector of the Brazilian industry will face in the near future.

EVOLUTION OF BRAZILIAN CITRUS INDUSTRY Orange (citrus sinensis) is the most important citrus fruit cultivated in Brazil. Being of Published with permission. Asiatic origin, oranges were brought to Brazil in the beginning of the sixteenth century by the Portuguese pioneers.

Although there are no records on where the first citrus trees were planted, by the middle of the sixteenth century the orange trees were spread all along the Brazilian sea coast, from north to south. (Figure 1) Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

I 16thCENTURY BRAZILIAN ORANGE GROWING AREAS I

It was only in the nineteenth century's records that we could find some indication of the appearance of commercial groves.

The predominant varieties according to the records were: "seleta orange", originated from "Valencia", brought from and , and "bahia", a bud mutation of "seleta" orange.

In 1960, the Brazilian production of oranges had nearly reached the level of 1.64 Millino Metric Tons (MMT), 50% of this total was produced in Sio Paulo.

By that time, 620 Thousand Metric Tons (TMT) of Sio Paulo production were used to supply the domestic consumption, 160 TMT were exported fresh and approximately 40 TMT were packing house rejects because of size and other aspects.

Taking advantage of the very low prices of the rejected fruits, some small orange juice plants were installed in the countryside of the State of S2o Paulo, near the existent packing houses. These processing plants produced primarily preserved concentrated orange juice which was packed in wood barrels, and as a by-product they produced cold pressed orange oil.

The scenario of the Brazilian citrus industry was not very promising until the end of 1962, when the Florida groves were devastated by a dramatic freeze.

Knowing that the Florida citrus groves would take three to four years to recover their growth rate, marketing and quality experts from Florida began to look elsewhere for citrus Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 growing regions that could fill the void created by the Florida freeze, with orange juice of comparable characteristics.

These requirements were met in the State of SBo Paulo, where a group of entrepre- neurs accepted the challenging opportunity.

In the second half of 1963, a few months after the freeze in Florida, the first Brazilian orange juice plant was installed in Araraquara, State of Sao Paulo, using Florida expertise to produce Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice (FCOJ) with the quality standards required by the American market. At the same time, the small plants producing preserved orange juice, equipped them- selves to produce FCOJ, which was packed in steel drums and transported by reefer container ships.

The economic results of the enterprise were so promising that in the following three years, six new factories were installed in the State of SBo Paulo.

The processing capacity of the Brazilian citrus industry was nearly 490 TMT of orangs in 1968 and since the production was focused on exports, Brazil reached the position of world leader in exports of FCOJ.

With international quality standard, the Brazilian orange juice was introduced in the European and Scandinavian market through the dairy products packers, which were responsible for the establishment of the habit of drinking fruit juices and the increase in consumption as well.

The favorable market responses experienced by the citrus industry were enough to develop a new concept in citrus planting, because it was clear that the orange varieties more adapted to the European fresh market requirements had to be replaced with varieties more suitable for processing into concentrate.

The continuous growth of the Brazilian citrus industry took the Brazilian exports to 11.6 million gallons of 42" Brix concentrate in 1970 and the processing capacity to nearly 612 TMT of oranges. From the total exports, 85% were destined to European countries and 15% to North America.

Although there was a constellation of positive facts, the optimism wave was not a consensus because to some investors, the Brazilian citrus industry was a temporary operation that was destined to face difficulties when the Florida groves recovered from the 1962 freeze. In fact, to their surprise the Brazilian conditions for growing citrus were different from Florida, and the differences in the cost of labor and raw material were important factors to support the industrial growth during the upcoming years.

The Brazilian citrus industry was not intimidated when Florida started to show the first signs of recovery because the European market was expanding in West Germany, Holland, Scandinavia and in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, factors other than the low cost of labor and fruit contributed to the growth of Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 the agricultural activities in the 70s in Brazil, for example:

1) Short term loans (up to 180 days) for the manufacture of exported goods at subsidized interest rates;

2) Credits to exchange operations;

3) Average or long term loans (3 months to 5 years) for industrial construction or expansion for the manufacture of exported goods at subsidized interest rates;

4) 28% return on taxes and duties charged on exported products; 5) Financing of agricultural projects at subsidized interest rate; 6) Federal taxes reduction for companies with ongoing reforesting projects. It is important to mention that these incentives were not specific for the citrus industry. They were derived from governmental programs intended to support the growth of the Brazilian economy, but without them the brazilian citrus industry would not have reached the actual development state.

Thus, it is possible to assume that the development of the Brazilian citrus industry was not only caused by the increase in orange juice consumption, but by a number of other advantageous conditions, like:

1) Plentiful and increasing supply of good quality raw material at low cost to give competitiveness in the international market;

2) A good supporting structure of transportation, energy supply, technical assistance, labor, research and other related factors necessary for the production, storage and distribution processes;

3) The governmental economic programs mentioned before.

These attractive conditions soon brought new investors to the citrus business and the Brazilian orange crop increased at an average rate of 9.0% a year from 1968 to 1973.

The elapsed time between 1974 and 1976 was marked by a serious economic crisis in the agro-industrial sector in Brazil. This was the result of the policies of rates and tariffs on imports imposed by the importing countries, the increase in transportation cost between the exporting countries and importing markets caused by the oil crisis and the recovery of production in the United States. These factors together brought the Brazilian orange juice prices to the lowest levels since 1962, which led some companies to relinquish the citrus segment and other companies to go bankrupt

The production of FCOJ became concentrated in four big processors, which had to find alternatives to keep competitive in the new reality.

This was a good survival exercise for the 1979180 season when the prices of the Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Brazilian FCOJ went back to the same levels practiced in 1974.

With the experience acquired in the two crises and a scenario indicating that the future of the Brazilian citrus industry would depend on the price and quality competitiveness, the biggest processors began to sponsor internal programs for technological development and one of the most important achievements was the introduction f the concentrate bulk handling system which was responsible for considerable savings on transportation costs.

This movement towards process improvements was accelerated when the government announced that after 1979 the incentives and financing projects at subsidized interest rates were to be gradually eliminated due to the constant pressures imposed by the GATT over the Brazilian exporting policies. It was considered that the credit over exchange operations given to the Brazilian producers was causing dumping in the international market.

The reduction of incentives and credits to the Brazilian exporters did not cause the desired effect on Brazil's international relations and the lack of competitive prices of the Brazilian exports in the 1980181 orange crop together with the turbulent national economi- cal environment brought difficulties to the Brazilian exporters who in some instances had to work under the break even point to keep in business.

These difficulties forced the Brazilian citrus industry to look into alternative solutions like the development of other potential markets, the improvement of the current technol- ogy of planting and processing of citrus and the search for alternative sources of energy. Then, it was in the energy issue that an original idea was adopted when all major processing plants started to use sugar cane bagasse as a replacement for oil to operate their boilers and in some instances to generate part of their electrical power consumption.

The result of the development efforts and occasional freezes in Florida was very significant on bringing the Brazilian citrus industry across the 80s to its actual status.

THE BRAZILIAN CITRUS INDUSTRY TODAY Nowadays Brazil has the largest orange production in the world with an orange crop in 1992193 at 13.06 MMT and is also the world's leader in exports having 71% of world's total exports of FCOJ.

Looking at the Brazilian orange crop over the past 30 years (Figure 2) we can see how the growth rate of the orange production developed in different periods of time. From 1966 to 1981 the average rate of growth was 9% a year as a result of very steady planting of new trees and the availability of financing for reforesting projects. BRAZILIAN ORANGE CROP FROM 1960 TO 1992 - 1e Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 P

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0 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 6QlSl 64/65 W6S 72R3 7W W/Sl 04/85 88/89 92/93 82/63 66/67 Mt7l 74/75 WS 82/83 WS7 SOIS1 SEASON fjg.2

The following ten years showed a different trend, but still had an average growth rate of 4% a year thanks to the constant freezes that hit the Florida groves in the beginning of 80s and an increase in demand for FCOJ

For the next ten years, the latest forecasts indicate that the growth rate of Brazilian orange production will remain steady at an average rate of 1.2% a year due to the instability of the export prices of Brazil's FCOJ in the last three years, the weakening of demand growth rate, international competition and other factors that will be discussed further.

The projected sales of Brazilian FCOJ for the 1992193 season (Figure 3) indicate that at least 53% goes to European Economic Community (EEC), 3O0I0 goes to North America and 14.5% to other countries. The domestic market accounts for only 2.5% of total FCOJ production in Brazil.

The main citrus production regions in Brazil (Figure 4) are the State of SBo Paulo, Sergipe, Minas Gerais Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul, Parana and Santa Catarina.

Since the State of SBo Paulo accounts for 85% of total production of oranges and 97% of the Brazilian exports of FCOJ it is necessary to give some attention to its characteristics to have a better understanding of the Brazilian citrus industry. PROJECTED SALES OF BRAZILIAN FCOJ FOR 92/93 CROP - Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

1 BRAZILJAW CITRUS GROWING AREAS 1 ORANGE AND FCOJ PRODUCTION IN THE STATE OF SAO PAULO The November 1992 forecast for the State of SBo Paulo indicated a total of 11.8 MMT of oranges.

From this total, 10.36 MMT will be processed into FCOJ with production of 334 million gallons of 42" Brix concentrate.

The orange groves in the State of SBo Paulo are located over a belt of two hundred Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 kilometers wide and four hundred kilometers long, from southeast to northwest of the state. (Figure 5)

I CITRUS GROVES DISTRIBUTION IN SAO PAULO I

The very good growing conditions in the State of SBo Paulo, including rainfall and unusual temperatures below 40°F have made citrus groves the third agricultural activity in land occupation.

In Sio Paulo citrus groves lose out only for sugar cane and pastures.

An area of 1.7 million acres accommodates 118 million bearing trees out of 144 million trees in total. Irrigation is practically not used at all with the exception of some experimen- tal groves.

Relying on weather conditions, the bloom, which occurs in the end of August to mid September, cannot be artificially stimulated and the Brazilian groves can have a second bloom two months later. The number of oranges holding on the trees from the first or second bloom will determine the following season's period, depending on which number is higher. SBo Paulo starts its orange processing season with early varieties ten months after the orange bloom.

Mid-season oranges are processed from mid of July until the end of October.

The late season oranges are processed in thirteen to fourteen months after their bloom, which means that during the bloom, the oranges from the previous year are still un- touched on the trees. Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

The most important varieties used for processing into FCOJ in SBo Paulo are:

Hamlin oranae: this early season fruit was brought to SBo Paulo from Florida. The only difference is that in SBo Paulo its juice has a slightly better color than in Florida because of longer tree storage time. Its share in total processed oranges os 9%

Pera oranae: this mid-season variety is characteristic of Brazil. Besides its unknown origin, there are some indications that it derived from Valencia. Pera accounts for 33% of the total processed orange in SBo Paulo.

Natal oranae: this variety originated in Brazil from Valencia orange grafted in Rangpur lime rootstock. It is a late season orange and is cultivated only in Brazil.

The orange juice made from Natal is comparable with Valencia even fresh or concen- trated. Its on tree yield and quality characteristics are increasing its consumption for fresh and for processing.

Actually its share on total processing is 32% with a yearly positive growth rate.

Valencia oranae: much has been written about Valencia orange that it is unessential to describe its quality characteristics.

It has adapted so well to the SBo Paulo growing conditions that its share in the total processing has been increasing on a regular basis.

Today the Valencia orange participates with 24% on total processed oranges.

CITRUS PROCESSING IN SAO PAUL0 The eighteen existent processing plants are well spread on the citrus growing region (Figure 6). The nominal processing capacity of these plants altogether totalize 13 MMT of oranges. Most of the plants are equipped with FMC In-line juice extractors, with the exception of one plant located in Concha1 which runs with Brown extractors.

The total evaporative capacity accounts for 5 million pounds of water per hour. The TASTE evaporators are used in 96% of the total evaporative capacity, the GEA Wiegand in 2.5% and others in 1.5%.

The Brazilian citrus plants produce as a primary product 65" Brix FCOJ, and as by- products cold pressed peel oil, essence oil phase, essence water phase, D'limonene, frozen orange cells and citrus pellets. CITROVITA CUTRALE I I OLIMPIA CARGIL CUTRALE UCHOA COLINA

CARGIL - FRUTESP Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 BEBEDOURO BRANCO PERES CUTRALE

ROYAL CITRUS TAQUARITINGA ANTARCTICA CITROSUCO - FRUTROPIC SAO PAUL0 CAMBUHY - CENTRAL CITRUS ITROSUCO CITROPECTINA MATAO - LIMEIRA

The basic unit operations to produce orange juice concentrate are similar all over the world and were brought to Brazil in the early 60s from the United States.

CONCENTRATE PRODUCTION Fruit Harvesting and Handling - Using modern computer systems to predict the ideal combination between ripeness and yield, the harvesting programs are set on a weekly basis.

The pickers are subcontracted, but the harvesting itself is supervised and controlled by the industry.

Fruit is brought to the processing plant from a distance no more than 100 miles in trucks with 17 tons of capacity.

The unloading of trucks is done, in most cases, with hydraulic ramps to discharge the fruit by gravity into a conveyor belt.

The unloaded fruit is transported over the grading tables (or roller conveyor) where the trash and unsound fruits are removed.

After grading, the oranges pass through a random sampler to determine the maturity level, size and solids content. This procedure is used to measure the plant performance, juice recovery, and to supply the production operations with data on each fruit load to be processed. The storage of the fruit is in wood bins in most of the Brazilian factories, but there are some metal bins in operation. Some processors are adapting the practice of unloading direct to the processing line. They claim that they have better yield. Processing - The analytical results from the Test Lab are used to make a blend of fruit loads in the bins to achieve specific product requirements. Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Fruit is released from the bins on conveyor belts, washed with condensate water, rinsed with chlorinated water and graded again. After washing and grading, fruit is sized and juice is extracted. The extracted juice flows in a closed pipe to the finishers to separate juice sacs from the juice.

The finished juice is centrifuged to reduce the pulp level and defects, transferred to the evaporator feed tanks and concentrated.

The evaporation process is one of the operations that has received a lot of attention in recent years because the improvements in its performance can bring significant contribu- tion to juice quality and operational cost savings.

The concentrated orange juice leaves the evaporator at 26°F and is transferred to the blending tanks where it can receive add backs like peel oil or water phase essence.

In the blend tank, juice is homogenized and then chilled in a plate heat exchanger to 12°F when it goes to the bulk handling system or 4°F when it is sent to the cold rooms packed in steel drums. Distribution - The bulk handling system is very useful when huge volumes of concentrate are considered. The system is composed of tanks with a capacity of 100 thousand gallons to 400 thousand gallons.

The logistics of the distribution system involve the availability of large cold storage facilities in the processing plants, the port of Santos and at the receiving terminals in the United States, and Japan.

The design of the newest bulk handling system allows product traceability from customer's tanker load to orange groves used in the specific juice manufacture.

Reliance and effectiveness are the highlights of the Brazilian bulk handling and distribu- tion system.

NEW TRENDS IN TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT In response to customer's desire to give final consumer improved juice products, the Brazilian citrus industry has invested in science, technology and human resources.

Experts from different branches of knowledge are working together to improve critical quality requirements based on customer's point of view. These improvements will come from the selection of varieties to guide the new plantings, determination of the ideal harvesting period that maximizes quality and yield and a continuous program for process updating.

Technologies like Supercritical Fluid Extraction and other systems for better aroma recovery, the use of filtration systems to replace finishers and centrifuges and the studies that have been done on not-from-concentrate manufacturing will be in the headlines of

reports from Brazilian citrus industry in the upcoming years. Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

CONCLUSION The dynamism and efficiency of the Brazilian citrus industry have made orange juice the third commodity in the Brazilian exports. (Figure 7)

SOYBEAN ' COFFEE FCOJ

Thus the citrus sector is one of the most important agricultural activities in the country, in spite of its vulnerability, once it is totally focused on exports, and depends to a great extent on the Florida citrus performance.

This dependence is risky once the United States as a big producer, has Brazil as a residual supplier, which contributes to keep the United States as the biggest consumer of orange juice in the world.

In this manner, one of the concerns of the Brazilian citrus segment is to develop new markets that can keep up the consumption of Brazilian FCOJ and gradually reduce the dependence on the USA market. It is worth notice that the Florida orange crop forecast for 1992193 season indicate that the groves which were planted after the big freezes have reached high production levels. Besides the growth of citrus production in Florida, Brazilian FCOJ will have to compete also with juices from Mexico and the Caribbean regions which have taken some share in the United States market recently.

Today the Mexican production is not causing discomfort for the Brazilian market share in the United States. However, with the increasing number of plantings and Mexican participation on the NAFTA treatise, there will be a substantial incentive to the develop- ment of the Mexican citrus industry once they will be free from the US $492,000 per metric Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 ton tax charged by the USA for imported FCOJ.

To counterbalance these constraints, the expected growing pattern of the consumption in Europe (7% in 1992) has changed the uneasy feelings created by some projections which indicated that there would be discrepancies between the availability and consump- tion of orange juice.

This recent change in consumption has been ascribed to the impacts of the 90s political and sociological transformations in Eastern Europe, but unfortunately there are no clear indications of the countries responsible for this consumption pattern because most of the Brazilian juice is brought into Europe through Holland and Belgium.

It is also expected that the Asiatic countries and Japan open good opportunities to compensate the possible loss of market share of the Brazilian juice in the United States in the future.

Considering the latest forecast for the year 2000 (Figure 8) we can see that world production will have an increase of 30%, and the Brazilian orange crop has an expected increase of 10% in the next eight years.

L(l0.7%) CEE

I TOTAL CROP - 621 MlUlON METRIC TONS Thus, it is obvious that marketing strategies, quality issues, better manufacturing and creativity will play an important role in exploring new opportunities in this very competitive business.

The Brazilian citrus industry now has 30 years of history, it has matured and is aware that this segment is not a "Gold Mine" but can be profitable if well managed.

Today a new generation of managers are heading the Brazilian citrus industry and with their energy and the expertise of the pioneers they are preparing themselves to predict Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/CES/proceedings-pdf/CEC1993/99809/71/2370690/cec1993-3906.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 and overcome the constraints to keep its worldwide excellency.

PUBLICATION - ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1 Commodity Research Bureau, Inc - Commodity Yearbook, various volumes.

2 Duran, T.A. 1989. La Cadena de Distribuicion y la Competitividad de las Exportaciones Latinoamericanas - La Exportacion de Jugo de Naranja Concentrado e Congelado de Brasil Ct'PAL.

3 Eurostat - Monthly External Trade Bulletin, various volumes.

4 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Production Yearbook, various volumes, Rome, .

5 Hasse, G. 1987. A Laranja no Brasil - 1500-1987. Ed. Duprat e IOBE, SSo Paulo.

6 Nonino, E.A. 1992. The Citrus lndustry in Brazil - paper presented in the Thirty Second Short Course for The Food Industry - University of Florida Gainesville.