Fruit Preprocessing
The key to a delicious juice is treating the fruit well before it is juiced. We perform a visual inspection on delivered fruit immediately and, on approval, normally process the fruit within 24 hours. Our three-stage mechanical system allows the fruit to roll gently from the bin onto the processing line, unlike the damaging “bulk bin” system used by most Florida processors.
Trained graders then inspect each piece of citrus fruit. Our ratio of graders to fruit volume is one of the highest in the industry. In addition, our food-safety process is HACCP-certified and our facility is certified organic by the EU, USDA, and Oregon Tilth and certified Kosher by Circle U.
Juicing
We operate five FMC citrus juice extractors with a daily production capacity of approximately 8,000 field boxes. Our “soft squeeze” extraction configuration reduces off-flavors in the juice.
We use a 40-gallon-per-minute Feldmeier triple tube high-temperature short-time pasteurizer/chiller. This technique heats the juice high enough to kill pathogens without affecting flavor, then immediately cools it to 30° Fahrenheit. This system is very flexible and can be adjusted to meet almost any requirements.
We separate fruit on a load-by-load basis to easily create custom blends. Unlike processors who store juice in million-gallon tanks, we blend our lots 20,000 gallons at a time and ship the juice to customers immediately or freeze for future shipment.
Other Services
We have the capability to drum juices in plastic or steel food grade drums lined with one or two 3-millimeter polyethylene liners. The drums are filled with 47 gallons of juice and are immediately placed in sub-zero temperature warehouses. We can fill approximately 100 drums an hour.
We also can remove bitter limonin from juice with our state-of-the-art debittering system, as well as extract and sell peel oils from different citrus varieties.