The future of Australian-made orange juice is in the hands of Asian countries like Japan.
Sales spiked in western countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, but overall demand has been declining for more than a decade.
Jeff Knispel, who manages South Australian company Nippy’s, has been bucking the trend, thanks to a $10 million investment in cold-pressed, cold-filled juices.
“From crushing cold oranges, cold-filling the bottle, refrigerating the sea freight and then cool-storing it in the country of destination in their warehouse … then having the product retail in the dairy cabinets,” he said.
The journey of juice
The industrialisation of farming a century ago took orange juice from a luxury item to a household staple.
Mr Knispel said American soldiers fighting in the Pacific during World War II drove demand for Australian-made fruit juice.
“It may not have been a particularly good product. I think it was boiled up and turned into a long-life product that was put in steel cans,” he said.
As the post-WWII western population grew, so did the thirst for orange juice.
During this boom time juice concentrate became a more economical product, until the federal government removed import tariffs.
“The fresh juice companies survived … but the people that were making concentrate, which gobbled up a lot of surplus oranges, they collapsed,” Mr Knispel said.
Then in recent years, concerns about sugar content and the emergence of other beverages like bottled water and carbonated soft drinks have crushed the market share for juice.
Last year’s Australian Citrus Annual report forecasted domestic annual consumption of orange juice to be 32,000 megatonnes. About half of that is imported, mostly from Brazil.
Oranges dumped
Truckloads of navel oranges being dumped on the east coast have made headlines recently, but Mr Knispel said cold and wet conditions had also led to fruit being discarded in South Australia’s Riverland.
It’s been another challenge, amid shipping delays, rising input prices and managing fruit fly outbreaks.
“I would guess 30 to 40 semi-trailer loads of [navel oranges] have been dumped. We’ve probably dumped 10 per cent,” he said.
Mr Knispel said while rejected navel oranges could be used for juice, valencia oranges were preferred.
“The golden rule with navels is, if you’re not growing packable fruit, you’re wasting your time pretty much because juiced navels are worth virtually nothing,” he said.
“You can make beautiful navel juice provided you drink it on the day or the next day but in a few days … it has the habit of picking up a bitter grapefruit flavour.”
Kitchen to factory
Finding ways to survive in a changing market has been a theme that continues to define the Nippy’s story.
Second-generation grower Mr Knispel said his father built up a business in the 1930s selling Riverland fruit in Adelaide’s East End Markets.
But this changed in the 1960s when the state government established a Citrus Board, which introduced legislation to control the industry.
“One of the regulations was that no-one shall pack oranges in the metropolitan area,” Mr Knispel said.
Losing access to a big population base on their doorstop, and moving operations to the 300-person town of Moorook left the family with a surplus of juice.
Mr Knispel said he and his brother got up every morning at 4am with their mother to make orange juice, first by hand and then with small, electric juicing machines.
After selling juice to neighbours, friends and the local market, their kitchen operation grew enough for them to rent a small factory with more sophisticated machinery.
Today Nippy’s has three facilities: a chilled juice operation in Adelaide, a fruit packing plant in Waikerie, and the original factory at Moorook, which produces long-life products.
Mr Knispel said his latest venture into longer-life chilled juices seemed to be paying off, with strong demand from local supermarkets, repeat orders for export, and sales up 10 per cent this financial year.
Tokyo buyer Reiko Tsuji said her company had been purchasing chilled juice from Nippy’s for two years.
“We do believe that [the] fresh [juice] market is coming up and premium juice with good storage will sell much better,” she said.
“We would love to grow our own market … and Australia has really great potential.”