Firms use imported pulp as Indian oranges have lower juice content. The Indian orange is yet to catch the fancy of beverage companies, foreign as well as Indian.
All the top players in orange-based beverage segment use only imported orange pulp in their products. These include Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and the homegrown Dabur India.
Dabur, the leader in orange-based packaged juices with a 54 per cent market share, sources orange concentrate from North and South America for its 'Real' brand.
PepsiCo sources the concentrate from Brazil, the US and Israel for its 'Tropicana' brand. It is the second biggest player in the market with a share of 25 per cent.
Coca-Cola, for its latest offering in the juice drink category, Minute Maid, imports the orange pulp from Florida in the US and the orange juice concentrate from Brazil.
The companies were unwilling to share details on the quantity of orange pulp imported. But a casual look at the market will prove that the amount could be large and is growing.
The packaged juice market in India is about 50 million cases per annum, accounting for sales of Rs 350 crore.
Orange-based juices, nectars and drinks form a sizeable part of this market. According to industry sources, the market for packaged juices is growing at over 25 per cent per annum. While other fruit juices and nectars have about 85 per cent fruit pulp content, fruit-based orange drinks have a pulp content of less than 20 per cent.
Beverage companies attribute the aversion for Indian oranges to their low juice content in comparison to those grown abroad. Experts add that Indian oranges are suitable for fresh fruit consumption and not for mechanised processing.
Low pulp content, more seeds and difficulty in peeling are some problems that keep the beverage companies from sourcing the fruit from India.
The numbers speak for themselves. The annual citrus fruit production-orange is a citrus fruit-in India stands at 6 million tonnes out of which only one per cent is processed.
But with the Indian market growing in size, there are indications that some packaged juice companies will soon start sourcing oranges from Indian orchards.
According to a PepsiCo spokesperson, the company has already started a programme for orange cultivation from imported seed. This is expected to result in oranges tailored to its requirements. Coca-Cola and Dabur are also are exploring the option of sourcing orange pulp from the domestic market.
If past experience is anything to go by, the switch to local oranges could be tough but not impossible. Initially, McDonald's too faced similar sourcing woes - it had to import potatoes for its wedges since potatoes of the right quality potato were unavailable in India.
Nonetheless, in order to fulfil its initial commitment to local sourcing, McDonald's and its supplier partner, McCain Foods Pvt Ltd, began to work closely with farmers in Gujarat and Maharashtra to develop process-grade potato varieties. Now Gujarat potatoes are utilised to make McDonald's potato wedges in India.
