Minute Maid To Raise Orange Juice Prices 6%-9% In April

Orange juice prices will rise 6% to 9% in April as a result of freeze-related losses to the Florida orange crop, a Minute Maid said Thursday. « We’re still evaluating the impact of the reduced crop volume, the lower crop yield and the freeze damage…and they are expected to affect our orange costs for 2010, » said Ray Crockett, spokesman for Minute Maid, which is owned by Coca- Cola Co. (KO) in Atlanta.

« We anticipate that we’ll be passing on a 6% to 9% cost increase to retailers in April, » he said.

While the orange-juice market is still trying to determine how much of the current 2009-10 Florida orange crop was lost to the mid-January freeze, analysts put the damage in a range of about 3 million to 7 million boxes. Each box weighs 90 pounds.

The Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services said last week that it anticipates a 30% loss to the state’s total agricultural crop volume, damage that will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Source : cnn