After apple juice, orange juice is one of the most popular juices of all. Statistically, everyone in Germany alone drinks around 10.4 liters a year. The popular juice is obtained by squeezing oranges and tangerines. Only juices that consist of 100 percent of the juice and pulp of oranges and tangerines may be called orange juice.
Commercially available are orange juices produced as direct juice or from concentrate. Orange juice concentrate is traded on the stock exchanges. Private investors can also participate in the orange juice price.
Elaborate and labor-intensive harvest
Oranges grow on evergreen trees originally from China and Southeast Asia.
Nowadays, oranges are grown everywhere in warm climates. Oranges on the German market mostly come from Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey or Morocco. However, the largest world producers are Brazil and the USA.
Orange trees do not bear their first fruit until three to four years after planting. Only after 8 years the maximum yield is reached. However, the fruit on an orange plantation never ripens at the same time, so that in southern Europe, for example, the harvest takes place from October to December. Machine harvesting is therefore not possible for oranges, making orange harvesting extremely labor-intensive.
Production of orange juice concentrate
The production of orange juice concentrate is also quite complex. First, all volatile aromas are extracted from the orange juice. The juice is then evaporated so that only one seventh of the mass remains. The flavors are added back to the evaporated concentrate in the final step.
To make it easier to store and transport the orange juice concentrate obtained in this way, it is frozen.
How private investors can invest in orange juice
Only frozen orange juice concentrate is traded on commodity exchanges. The most important stock exchange is the Intercontinental Exchance based in Atlanta, USA.
Private investors cannot trade directly in orange juice, but have the opportunity to participate in the orange juice price with certificates or warrants.
Highly volatile share price
The price of orange juice depends on various factors. Strong price fluctuations are therefore normal for orange juice. The orange harvest in southern Europe plays virtually no role in the price trend. The production volume there is simply too low.
Instead, the price of orange juice is mainly determined by the two main producing countries, Brazil and the USA. Brazil exports the largest quantity of orange juice concentrate. Like Germany, the USA is one of the countries with the highest consumption of orange juice. Therefore, only what is not needed in the own country is exported.
In addition, in the USA in particular, the harvest is highly dependent on the climate. The main growing area is the state of Florida, where crop failures due to hurricanes, particularly cold winters and pests are common. The price development of orange juice reacts very strongly to such events.
An investment in orange juice can therefore bring high profits, but also enormous losses. Anyone who wants to invest in certificates or warrants should therefore always keep a close eye on price developments.
