They are squeezed and pasteurized and, if they are not bound for frozen concentrate, are kept in aseptic storage, which involves stripping the juice of oxygen in a process called "deaeration," and kept in million-gallon tanks for up to a year.īefore packaging and shipping, the juice is then jazzed up with an added flavor pack, gleaned from orange byproducts such as the peel and pulp, to compensate for the loss of taste and aroma during the heating process.ĭifferent brands use different flavor packs to give their product its unique and always consistent taste. Minute Maid, for example, has a distinctive candy-sweet flavor. Kristen Gunter, executive director of the Florida Citrus Processors Association, confirmed that juices are blended and stored and that flavor packs are added to pasteurized juice before shipping to stores.įlavor packs are created from the volatile compounds that escape from the orange during the pasteurization step.īut, she said, "It's not made in a lab or made in a chemical process, but comes through the physical process of boiling and capturing the. The pasteurization process not only makes the food safe, but stabilizes the juice, which in its fresh state separates. Adding the flavor packs ensures a consistent flavor. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grades the quality of the juice based on color, flavor and defects. "To get grade A, we have to blend it," she said.
"Because oranges and their growing seasons vary, both the Valencia - 'king of the oranges' - and its lesser cousin, the Hamlin, are combined in the process. "A processor is faced with harvesting the crop and giving the consumer some sense of what might be getting," she said. "You buy branded orange juice, you kind of want it to taste, generally, the same.