Florida's Natural Orange Juice

Florida's Natural Orange Juice Visitor's Center and Plant is based in Lake Wales, FL and is currently owned by over 1100 Florida grower members.  It was founded in 1933 as Florida Citrus Canners Cooperative which canned juice and grapefruit sections.  In 1938 it began extracting juice with automated machines.  During WW II it produced concentrated juice for the military.  80 % of the juice the company produced was frozen concentrate to meet the demands.  In the 1960's consumers wanted fresh squeezed orange juice and in 1969 the company changed its name to Citrus World until 1998 when it changed its name to it's current name Florida's Natural Juice.  In 1987 most consumers wanted premium juice so the company changed its juice to freshly squeezed  juice, pasteurized, and contains no additional ingredients.  It is pure and simply orange juice or grapefruit juice.  Florida's Natural also produces juice blends, all 100% juice.  I had their Cranberry Grapefruit juice and it was really good and I don't even like grapefruit juice.  Florida's Natural was also responsible for inventing the resealable spout on the juice cartons.  As their slogan says, "We own the land, we own the trees, we own the product".  We were not able to tour the plant but the tourist center is nice and the tour video is very well done.  They do have free juice samples and orange glazed popcorn, which is very good, available.  Their store is cute with a lot of Florida's Natural merchandise.  Glasses, t-shirts, pens,juicers, etc.  It was a great way to spend and  hour and enjoy some really good juice.