On the very rare occasions when I can visit the USA and it’s often to the IFT, I like to try various products from the retailers. This year I was lucky enough to visit Las Vegas because IFT 2017 was up and running.
On this occasion I looked up and down the supermarkets until I arrived at Gelson’s market in Los Angeles where I was stopping off before heading up to Portland, Oregon. I was lucky enough to try some of the fruit juices which have made their way onto the shelves. Given the absolutely superating heat of the place, anything cool was welcome. Enter a variety of juice drinks from Natalie’s Orchid Island which is based in citrus growing country – Florida. They have been doyens of the juice beverage market for many years having based all their offerings on high quality freshly squeezed citrus juices with a strong functional emphasis. I couldn’t take these home with me because of airport restrictions so with my ‘trained’ tastebuds I had a go at evaluating them.
The Business
Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company is an interesting business anyway having started in and around 1990. It predominates in the USA in 33 states. It has been awarded America’s Best Tasting Fresh Florida Juices ten times which is an accolade track record of some note. The business has clearly expanded with its offerings now in a range of countries (currently 24) including Europe but not the United Kingdom yet. Nowadays, it’s is run exclusively by the women who make up the second generation being a mother and two daughters. This is accredited according to the web-site as a Women’s Business Enterprise according to their eponymous National Council. For any food businesses being able to pass it down the generations is a tremendous boost otherwise its ethos and the heritage is dissipated. Their business is to continue to produce very clean label Florida juices with extra twists and more of that later.
Florida for me means Everglades, the Gators (animal and College Football team although similar in attitudes), Miami Vice and if its food – orange fruit juice. I started with their flagship product, the orange juice. To my eye this is typically cloudy or pulpy which knocks the zestiness back but lets a smoother, slightly acidic fruit flavour to come through. The packaging is a classic plastic bottle (16 oz.) with screw top lid which is wholly recyclable and delivers in most cases 160% of the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) or Daily Value (DV) of vitamin C in US circles. To ensure a consistent supply, at least 15 different orange varieties are used. Citrus is always associated with vitamin C and there is plenty of it. If the pasteurisation is gentle enough then many of the nutrients are retained. I also noted a family sized pack at 64 oz. for those fearful of running out.
There is a very clear message about clean label. No concentrates, very few additives except those of the purest sort. No preservatives, no artificials – it’s a clear message ! It’s also in the chill chain range with limited shelf-life although High Pressure processing would extend it further as does full thermal pasteurisation but this may not be necessary under the circumstances of retaining freshness.
To compare the basic orange juice with the Orange Mango Juice seemed appropriate given that mango adds a classic tropical note and a bit of depth that raises the quality of the juice. I’ve no idea what the mango cultivar was but I suspect Tommy Atkins. Incidentally, no GMO juice crosses the threshold and I couldn’t see any other ingredients on their bottles. Vitamin E and fibre are also referenced. That fibre content is 1g per serve size and one bottle delivers twice that amount. To complement the fresh orange juice, I noticed a blood orange variant which uses Sicilian blood oranges and has a red blush from all those healthy orange anthocyanins. This is one of two juice products launched in 2017.
Another product that caught my eye was the Orange Beet which is distinctive for its damask rose colour but having a distinctive beetroot flavour to complement a sharp citrus note. Clearly one for the health conscious looking to reduce blood pressure as beetroot has some very powerful health messages associated with it. According to FoodBev magazine this is ‘a new spin on traditional orange juice’.
A more serious offering and clearly aimed at those of us who are big fans of tea in the classic Lemonade Tea which mixes up lemon juice with black tea and cane sugar. The sugar content is 24g in 240ml (8 fl. oz.) but that is needed to obtain the correct degree of sweetness and reduce some of the astringency that comes with brewed tea. Too overpowering and mouth puckering is carried too far. Straight lemonade along with Strawberry lemonade is available too. The strawberry variant has an interesting (my oft used word) balance and there was a single-serve 8 oz. plastic bottle available too.
Where there is real success and novelty is in the use of vegetable juices which are notorious to use in any beverage formulation. There are two. Carrot Tomato Celery’ and just as inviting ‘Carrot Ginger Turmeric Apple’ which is a 2017 launch. Turmeric has become one of the trending spices of recent years and has very strong antioxidant credentials. Ginger is another healthy ingredient and unlike some of the other variants has a decent vitamin A content. Perhaps the marketing trend here is to emphasise the functional food elements. The juices themselves provide a range of important vitamins and adding other ingredients which complement these benefits only improves the offering.
The website provides a range of fruit cocktails for all the juices and I imagine that these go down very well, whether alcoholic or free of it. One of their features has been Margherita cocktails. The two new vegetable juice (flavour) launches have been shown at the 2017 Summer Fancy Food Show run by SupplySide West.
News & Magazine Web-Sites
Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company unveils new flavours. http://www.foodbev.com/news/natalies-orchid-island-juice-company-unveils-two-new-flavours/ Accessed June 28th, 2017.
Leave a Reply