The Quality Control of Chilled Orange Juice from the Tree to the Consumer

For a number of years, due to the compatability of citrus juice and milk, the citrus and dairy farmers looked for a suitable means of processing and packaging citrus juice for distribution by dairy route trucks. With the advent of chilled orange juice, this was ac complished. Cartoned, or chilled orange juice as it is commonly called, is a single strength orange juice, marketed in a waxed fiberboard carton. The juice is extracted and treated in such a manner as to retain most of the desirable flavor and aroma which is associated with freshly squeezed orange juice. It is highly perishable in nature, and must be stored or transported under adequate refrigeration in order to reach the consumer in a, palatable state. During the past season (1955-56) more than 3,000,000 boxes of Florida oranges were used in production of this product. It is anti cipated that during the current 1956-57 sea son, an excess of 5,000,000 boxes will be util ized. It is the goal of the product control in the Chilled Orange Juice industry to present to the customer—the housewife, the institu tional dietician, or the restaurateur—orange juice of such quality, to have more uniformity in flavor and aroma, than juice extracted from fresh oranges themselves. The selection of the fruit to be extracted is the first and a very important step in qual ity control of chilled juice. This is accom plished in the groves, where the fruit is tested and tasted at regular intervals for maturity by trained technicians and buyers. When the fruit in the groves reaches its peak of ma turity, it is then selected for its quality. The maturity of the fruit is based for all practical purposes oh the relationship of the per cent of soluble solids to the acid content, since it has been found that when certain ratios of sugars to acids are found in the fruit, the juice will also have best flavor, color, cloud, vitamin C, and all the other desirable quali