The orange juice industry's crisis is having repercussions worldwide, affecting countries such as Japan. According to NHK World Japan, several orange juice manufacturers from Japan have suspended orange juice sales. One of the main causes of this situation is that Brazil, the world's largest producer of orange juice, has had a very poor harvest due to adverse weather conditions.
The weakness of the Japanese yen has aggravated the issue, causing the prices of orange juice imports to increase by more than 50% last year, according to the Japanese Fruit Juice Association. Morinaga Milk Industry and Yakult Honsha are some of the companies that have suspended or stopped sales of orange juice, while Os Food Service has increased the prices of its juices.
Given Brazil's supply shortage, manufacturers such as Tomoe Milk, located in Ibaraki, are looking for and have gradually increased imports from other suppliers, such as Israel. Meanwhile, some producers, such as Aikobo, in Ehime, are considering working with domestic suppliers. However, they face the challenge of low production and farmers' preference for growing higher-value oranges for fresh consumption.
Farmers in Ehime, one of Japan's main citrus-producing areas, say there's not much they can do to improve the situation. Oranges for juice are different than oranges for fresh consumption. The former tend to have strange scars or shapes and farmers are not interested in growing them because their price is about one-tenth of the latter.
In addition, the improvement in the quality of local oranges since the liberalization of imports in 1991 makes it difficult to replace low-cost imports with domestic production.
Source: simfruit.cl