Gift fruit shipping remains prosperous for Fla. citrus
HAINES CITY — Amid the turmoil that is the Florida citrus industry, one sector, gift fruit shipping, remains quietly prosperous.
Although not so quietly these days, as Christmas is the biggest sales period for citrus gift fruit, a traditional item in children’s stockings and on the holiday dinner table.
“Christmas is our most hectic time because cus- tomers want their fruit BY CHRISTMAS,” said Archie Ritch, the owner of Ridge Island Groves in Haines City with his wife, Jill. “Christmas is our peak shipping month.”
Gift citrus tends to fly under the radar in the state’s citrus industry, where 95 percent of the orange crop and about 60 percent of grapefruit goes to juice. About 70 percent of Florida tangerines and tangelos are sold as fresh but mostly in supermarkets and other large retailers.
Gift citrus is not tracked separately from other fresh fruit shipments, but gift oranges represent about 20 percent of that fresh market while gift grapefruit account for less than 10 percent of fresh grapefruit shipments, said Samantha Lane, director of public relations and branding at the Florida Department of Citrus in Bartow.
That doesn’t include the 2017-18 season, when the market was skewed by Hurricane Irma, which destroyed half or more of some citrus varieties grown in Florida before the harvest.
Although Irma cut into supplies last season, gift fruit shippers were able to fill all the orders they received, said Ritch and Pete Spyke, owner of the Orange Shop in Citra and a leader in the gift citrus sector.
“Even with the hurricane, we had plenty of fruit,” he said. “As far as the gift fruit trade goes, things have been good and are still good.”
Ritch agreed.
“Our gift fruit business is strong,” he said. “We have not experienced any large increases, nor have we experienced any large declines.”
That’s a remarkable statement given the history of Florida citrus since the arrival of the fatal citrus greening disease in 2005.
Greening-infected citrus trees produce fewer fruit and tend to drop fruit at higher rates before harvest because of their weakened condition. As a result, the annual Florida citrus harvest has declined by more than 70 percent since the 2003-04 season, the last Florida citrus season unaffected by hurricanes.
The production decline has hit the fresh fruit market in particular, forcing the closing of many citrus packinghouses in recent years, including Ben Hill Griffin Inc. in Frostproof and the Haines City Citrus Growers Association facility.
Despite the general decline, many of the citrus varieties favored by gift fruit customers, such as Honeybell and Navel oranges, tolerate greening infection better, Spyke said.
Growers like Ritch and Spyke produce in their own groves specifically for the gift fruit market, they said. That means they can take aggressive measures against greening to maintain production and the fruit’s cosmetic appearance buyers demand.
And while packinghouse closures have been bad for the fresh citrus industry as a whole, they’ve helped increase the supply of fruit for the gift fruit market, Ritch said.
Many growers who previously sold to the shuttered packinghouses are looking for new buyers, he added.
“There’s fruit out there that’s available for the fresh market that’s looking for a home,” Ritch said.
In addition to Ridge Island groves, Ritch also buys fruit from about 20 other growers with about 200 acres, he said.
Spyke, who has a couple hundred of his own groves, also buys fruit from dozens of other growers along the East Coast, he said.
So far this Christmas season, gift citrus remains popular and orders have been steady if not up slightly, Spyke and Ritch said.
Pamela Martin agreed. She’s the general manager of the Florida Gift Fruit Shippers Association in Orlando, the sector’s trade group that also provides shipping for about half its 46 members.
“I think we’re doing well this season,” she said. “I think part of the appeal of gift citrus fruit is it’s picked fresh when it’s ordered. It’s small, and it’s local.”
The gift citrus sector also remains strong because fresh citrus at Christmas has become a national tradition, particularly in wintry northern states, Martin, Ritch and Spyke agreed. Midwesterners and New Englanders may dream of a white Christmas, but they still want to eat sweet, fresh citrus.
Although gift citrus has always been a small segment of the larger industry, its size does not diminish its importance as a symbol of Florida citrus, Spyke said. For more information, call 850-921-7529 or visit flalottery.com
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