Business Channel 2006-10-10&13

In Florida, groves 1, grocery aisles 2, and even corporate 3 boardrooms, people are being squeezed by orange shortages that have sent juice prices to record highs. Florida is the world's second largest orange producer with Brazil holding the top spot and most of the state's crops have turned it to juice. But over the past two years, orange production has been ravaged 4 by hurricanes and a tree disease that was spread by storm winds. As a result, consumers have seen an average 9% jump in retail 5 juice prices this year and they can go up even more, Richard?

Oh, Gerri, I guess, ah, you and I don't like it as consumers, but dah, (right) those producers must be liking 6 the prices, right?

Well. the juice brands are worried because higher retail prices have hurt sales. Also the Florida orange shortage has forced juice marketers to import expensive juice from Brazil, which is eroding 7 their profit margins 8. All of these could show up in earning statements. The two biggest juice brands Tropicana and Minute Maid are owned by large corporations. Peps, Pepsico is a parent of Tropicana, while Minute Maid is a unit of Coca Cola. Both have warned that the juice squeeze could hurt their overall earnings 9.

And in another food news, the pace of growth in the organic segment in the, of the industry is reportedly stalling because the public is balking 10 at high prices. According to Ad Age Magazine, some companies are spending more to market new organic foods than they earn from the products. Uniliver, for example, spent 20 million dollars this year to promote an organic version of Ragu pa, pasta sauce, but the offering flops 11. So next year, Uniliver says organic Ragu will be in, in no more than 15% of traditional grocery stores. Richard?

You, you know, you gotta ask, Gerri. those folks, ah, those chains that do carry organic foods, like Whole Foods, why are they doing well, then?

Well, it's interesting, stores like Whole Foods target more affluent 12 shoppers and they're still moving lots of organic merchandise. The problem for the industry is that it's not expanding beyond its current niche 13. Organic foods are a 14-billion-dollar-a-year business but that's less than 3% of total food sales.

And finally, a new report says when people are heading to work, they're hitting the road earlier, traveling farther and driving alone more often. The Transportation Research Board, an independent advisory 14 group, also found that more folks are commuting 15 between suburbs as opposed to going from suburbs to cities. The group says that from 1990 to 2000, there was an almost 50% increase in the number of people with commutes 16 longer than an hour. Also to beat traffic, more American are leaving for work before 6:30 A.M.. One other note in that 10-year span, the number of solo drivers grew by almost 13%.

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1. stall--verb. to come to a standstill; be brought to a stop.

2. balk--verb. to stop, as at an obstacle, and refuse to proceed or to do something specified 17 (usually followed by at): He balked 18 at making the speech.

3. flop--verb. to be a complete failure; fail: The play flopped 19 dismally 20.

4. niche--noun. a distinct segment of a market.

5. as opposed to--In contrast to