Tropicana Products, Inc.

Tropicana Brands Group ( ) is an American fruit-based beverage company. It was founded in 1947 by Anthony T. Rossi in Bradenton, Florida. Between 1998 and 2021, it was a subsidiary of PepsiCo. In August 2021, 61% of Tropicana was sold along with the rest of PepsiCo's juice brand portfolio for $3.3 billion to French investment fund PAI Partners. PepsiCo retained the remaining 39% of the company's ownership.

History

Establishment

Tropicana traces its roots to Anthony T. Rossi, a native of Sicily in Italy, who immigrated to the United States in 1921 when he was 21. He drove a taxi, was a grocer in New York, then worked as a farmer in Virginia. He then moved to Florida in 1940, where he farmed, and was a restaurateur. His first involvement with the Florida citrus industry was creating fresh fruit gift boxes. These were sold in Macy's and Gimbels department stores, all in the city of New York.

In 1947, Rossi settled in Palmetto, Florida, and began packing fruit gift boxes and jars of sectioned fruit for salads under the name Manatee River Packing Company. As the fruit segment business grew, the company moved to a larger location in East Bradenton, Florida, and changed its name to Fruit Industries. Fruit Industries continued to grow, even started supplying ingredients for the fresh fruit salads on the menu of New York's famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Rossi began producing frozen concentrated orange juice at the East Bradenton location as a natural extension of the fruit section business.

Evolution

In 1952, Rossi purchased the Grapefruit Canning Company in Bradenton. The fresh fruit segments and orange juice business was profitable enough that he discontinued the production of fruit boxes. He developed flash pasteurization in 1954, a preservation process that raised the temperature of juice for a short time to only minimally affect its taste. It provided an alternative to the frozen product, which both heated and concentrated the juice. Tropicana Pure Premium chilled juice became the company's flagship product.

The company developed a trademarked cartoon mascot for the brand called Tropic-Ana, a barefoot young girl carrying oranges on her head and wearing clothing that resembles a Hawaiian grass skirt and lei. She appeared prominently on the juice cartons and even the train cars used to transport the juice. Her image was phased out during the 1980s.

Ed Price was hired as executive vice president and director in 1955 and represented the company as chairman of the Florida Citrus Commission. In 1957, the company's name was changed to Tropicana Products, Inc. to reflect the growing appeal of the Tropicana brand.

Shipping innovations

Tropicana purchased one million dollars worth of refrigerated trucks to deliver Pure Premium in the mid to late fifties.Nickel, K., Stout, M. & Snyder, L. (2003). A History of Tropicana. Tropicana Products, Inc. Soon, 2,000 dairies delivered Pure Premium orange juice to the doorsteps of consumers each morning. By 1958, a ship, S.S. Tropicana, delivered of juice to New York each week from the new base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. From 1960 to 1970, Tropicana utilized piggyback trailers on flatcars to move the juice more efficiently.

In 1970, Tropicana orange juice was shipped as finished goods via refrigerated boxcars in one weekly round-trip from Florida to Kearny, New Jersey. By the following year, the company was operating two 65-car unit trains a week, each carrying around of juice. The "Great White Juice Train" (the first unit train in the food industry, consisting of 150 100-short ton insulated boxcars fabricated in the Alexandria, Virginia shops of Fruit Growers Express) commenced service on June 7, 1971, over the route. An additional 100 cars were soon incorporated into the fleet, and small mechanical refrigeration units were installed to keep temperatures constant on hot days. In 2004, Tropicana's rail fleet of 514 cars traveled over – a method that is three times more fuel-efficient than other shipping methods.

Going public and expansion: 1969–1997

Tropicana Products, Inc. went public in 1969. The stock was first sold over the counter but gained a listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TOJ. In the same year, it became the first company in the citrus industry to operate its own plastic container manufacturing plant.

Executive vice president Ed Price, who served two terms in the Florida Senate (1958–1966), resigned his position in 1972, but remained on the board of directors until 1983.

Rossi sold Tropicana to Beatrice Foods in 1978. He then retired and was inducted into the ''Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame'' in 1987. In 1985, Tropicana debuted Tropicana Pure Premium HomeStyle orange juice, which featured added pulp.

In the 1980s, Tropicana was acquired by The Seagram Company, Ltd. In the decade that followed, it introduced new juice beverage creations, including the orange line of bottled and frozen juice blends.

In the early nineties under Seagram, Tropicana also began to expand distribution to global markets. They formed a partnership to process and distribute Kirin-Tropicana juices in Japan. By that time, the company was also distributing Tropicana Pure Premium in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Argentina, Panama, and Sweden. As the 1990s continued, Tropicana further expanded internationally, entering several more Latin American countries, Hong Kong and China.

Seagram Beverage Group acquired Dole Food Company's global juice business in 1995, including the Dole brands in North America, and Dole, Fruvita, Looza, and Juice Bowl juices and nectars in Europe. Dole was operated under Tropicana Dole Beverages North America and Tropicana Dole Beverages International.

Sold to PepsiCo and twenty-first century: 1998–2021

Tropicana was acquired by PepsiCo in 1998, which combined it with the Dole brand for marketing purposes. The company has become the world's leading producer of branded fruit juices. Tropicana headquarters moved to Chicago in 2003.

Due to the decreased productivity of Florida's orange crop in the wake of several damaging touches of frost, Tropicana began using a blend of Florida and Brazilian oranges in 2007. Citing an increased consumer interest in the origin of food products, the company announced in February 2012 that its Tropicana Pure Premium line would return to sourcing oranges only from Florida. Tropicana later reverted to sourcing its oranges from both Florida and Brazil due to the Asian citrus psyllid, a microscopic insect that spreads a bacterial disease that causes citrus greening. It is estimated that the disease has killed over 75% of Florida's citrus trees.

In February 2009, Tropicana switched the design on all cartons sold in the United States to a new image created by the Arnell Group. The new packaging featured an image of a stemmed glass of orange juice, redesigned the cap to look like the outside of an orange, and rotated the name to be read vertically. After two months of negative consumer reaction and a 20% drop in sales, Tropicana switched back to its original design of an orange skewered by a drinking straw.

In early 2010, Tropicana reduced the size of its traditional carton to in the U.S. market and maintained the original price. This change represented a 7.8% price-per-ounce increase for consumers. In 2018, Tropicana again reduced the size of its containers, from to , due to more shortages and high demand.

Joint venture with PAI Partners (2021–present)

On August 3, 2021, PepsiCo announced that they would sell a majority stake in Tropicana, Naked Juice, and other juice brands to PAI Partners for $3.3 billion, to concentrate on their healthy snack foods and zero-calorie beverages. They would retain a 39% stake in the new joint-venture company and have exclusive distribution rights to the brands in the USA.

In November 2024, Tropicana announced they were redesigning its packaging, reducing the size of its orange juice containers. The company will replace the 52-ounce carafe with a narrower 46-ounce bottle. This change comes amid declining orange juice consumption in the United States.

In February 2025, Tropicana reported that it was in financial distress and warned it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company blamed several factors as part of its struggles, such as declining sales, inflation, changes in Americans' diets, increased competition, and natural disasters occurring in Florida and Brazil due to climate change. The latter reason, in particular, caused production to be shedded by over 73% since 2015.

Not-for-profit affiliations

In 2008, Tropicana started the "Rescue Rainforest" campaign in the U.S. in collaboration with the charity Cool Earth. People could buy special promotional packs of Tropicana and enter the pack's code online. For each code entered, of rainforest would be saved. The project was based in the Ashaninka corridor in Peru, which lies in an arc of deforestation. As of June 2009, over had been saved.

Tropicana has also been encouraging carton recycling and supporting the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

Other products

Pepsi produced fruit-flavored soft drinks called Tropicana Twister Soda in 2005.

This soft drink line has largely replaced Pepsi's Slice line. Tropicana also has Fruit Snacks, and in the United Kingdom makes smoothies.

Trop50, introduced by Tropicana in 2009, is orange juice with 50% less sugar and calories, a reduction achieved by dilution with 50% water and the addition of Reb A or PureVia, chemically altered versions of the Stevia plant. Trop50 is available in several varieties including Farmstand Apple, Pomegranate Blueberry, Pineapple Mango, Orange, Lemonade, and Raspberry Lemonade.

A number of their juice products designed for 'extended shelf life' are colored with 'carmine', an extract of cochineal beetles.

In 2010, the company announced a limited release of Tropolis, a liquid fruit snack drink, for January 2011.

In March 2011, the IRI named Trop50 as one of the "Top 10 Food and Beverage Brands in 2010".

In celebration of National Orange Juice Day on May 4, 2022, Tropicana released ''Tropicana Crunch'', a limited-edition cereal intended to be eaten with orange juice. Composed primarily of oats, wheat, brown sugar, rice, almonds, and honey.

Naming rights

Tropicana holds sponsorship to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, the home to the baseball team Tampa Bay Rays. The name of the Bradenton Juice baseball team of the South Coast League was indicative of Tropicana's headquarters which were located in Bradenton, Florida.

Headquarters

The headquarters of Tropicana Products are in Chicago, Illinois. PepsiCo, the parent company of Tropicana, planned to begin moving Tropicana employees into its existing Chicago facility in the first quarter of 2004. PepsiCo moved Tropicana into Chicago to consolidate their juice brands into one Chicago-based unit.

Tropicana Products was headquartered in the four-story Rossi Office Building in Bradenton, Florida until 2004. In 2004, the building, which was completed in 2002, was sold for $20 million. In 2007, it was sold to Bealls of Florida. The 149,000 square foot building was renamed the E. R. Beall Center.Braga, Michael and Kevin McQuaid.
Bealls buys office space
" ''Sarasota Herald-Tribune''. Wednesday January 3, 2007. Retrieved on December 23, 2009.

See also

* Agriculture in Florida

Footnotes

Sources

Rossi's bio
at the Florida Agriculture Hall of Fame class of 1987
*Sanna Barlow Rossi. (1986) ''Anthony T. Rossi, Christian and Entrepreneur: The Story of the Founder of Tropicana.'' Inter-Varsity Press.

External links

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Tropicana Europe Aseptic Bottle-Filling Line

{{Portal bar, Chicago, Illinois, Florida, Companies, Food

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Drink companies of the United States
Citrus industry in Florida
PepsiCo brands
Food and drink companies established in 1947
1947 establishments in Florida
American brands
Companies based in Manatee County, Florida
Bradenton, Florida
1998 mergers and acquisitions