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Major citrus company says production down, prices up
The major Florida citrus company and landowner Alico, Inc. saw harvested boxes of fruit decrease during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 but got a boost from higher prices linked to consumer demand for orange juice, the company said in federal Securities and Exchange Commission filings released Tuesday.
Alico said it harvested 6.4 million boxes of fruit during the year, down 16.1 percent from the previous fiscal year.
But it said the decrease was better than an overall 21.7 percent decline in the state’s orange crop reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Also, it said increased consumption led to decreased inventory levels at juice processors and, as a result, higher prices.
“As we commence our current harvest season and look out to fiscal year 2022, we are encouraged to see consumption of not-from-concentrate orange juice remaining strong, and processor inventories are at lower-than-normal levels,” company President and CEO John Kiernan said in a prepared statement Tuesday.
“We believe market prices for fiscal year 2022 should remain near or above those recorded in the 2020/2021 harvest season.”
Florida growers have struggled for years against residential and commercial development, foreign imports and citrus greening, an incurable bacterial disease. Alico said in a filing Tuesday it owns about 83,000 acres of land in Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands and Polk counties and is one of the largest citrus producers in the country.
The Fort Myers-based company also said it sold about 19,800 acres during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 and used the proceeds to buy more citrus land, prepay debt and increase a stock dividend.
