After nearly five years of using orange juice from a variety of sources, PepsiCo will return to using 100 percent Florida orange juice in its Tropicana Pure Premium products, according to a new report by Beverage Digest, an industry newsletter. The report comes only days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) halted shipments of orange juice from Brazil while it tested for traces of carbendazim, an anti-fungal chemical banned in the U.S.
Despite the FDA’s recent decision to halt Brazilian orange juice shipments, a PepsiCo executive said that the decision to return to 100 percent juice from Florida was made “some months ago.” PepsiCo had been using alternative sources, including Brazil, for its orange juice since 2007, due to problems with Florida’s orange crop and an overall spike in costs.
The Beverage Digest report also states that PepsiCo will adopt new marketing campaigns that promote Tropicana’s use of Florida juice “in the coming weeks.”
Last week it was revealed that Coca-Cola was the company that alerted the FDA after detecting traces of carbendazim in its of bottled and concentrated orange juice as well as in those of its competitors. Though banned in the U.S., carbendazim is widely used in most countries around the world. A spokesperson from Coca-Cola said that the company obtains, “a significant amount of [its] orange juice for the U.S. from Florida,” but indicated that the company will continue to purchase its juice from a number of sources.