Citrus marketing studies will aim at millennials

WINTER GARDEN — Retail orange juice sales at major U.S. supermarkets continued a five-year decline, but help may be on the way.

Orange juice sales dropped 9 percent in the four-week period ending Dec. 20 compared to a similar period a year ago, according to the most recent report from the Florida Department of Citrus. The drop came with a 5 percent increase over that time in the average retail price of all orange juice products to $6.48 per gallon.

U.S. retail orange juice sales have declined 41 percent since the 2000-01 season on an average 48 percent price increase during that time, according to Citrus Department data. The only seasonal increase came in 2008-09, when sales inched up 1 percent before declining again.

But Florida citrus officials think price hikes don’t totally account for the long decline, and the Citrus Department has undertaken a $500,000 study of what factors in today’s market may motivate consumers, particularly millennial consumers, to buy 100 percent orange juice. Florida provides about 75 percent of all orange juice consumed in North America.

Marketers have tagged the generation born between roughly 1980 and 2000 as “millennials,” and they are coming into their own as the prime market for all kinds of consumable goods.

The University of Florida study will begin Jan. 22 in Boston, where researchers will interview two panels of millennial consumers who are loyal orange juice drinkers, defined as one glass per day.

Researchers commonly use such focus groups to tease out cues, phrases and themes from a particular population that will set up further inquiry, said Larry Ross, a marketing professor at Florida Southern College who has studied millennials.

“They can buy four or five different brands of flavored waters and an almost infinite variety of other beverages,” he said. “I think the biggest challenge for orange juice is how it’s going to compete in that crowded marketplace.”

The next step of the research effort will be an online national survey of 600 people focusing on loyal consumers and millennials, said David Steele, a Citrus Department spokesman. The survey will occur from Jan. 31 to March 31.

“Loyalist and millennials are of great interest to the OJ brands, so there’s a reason to start there,” Steele said. “Their insights could apply to all consumers.”

Researchers will analyze survey results through a computer program that taps “into the core of the human emotional response” to products, according to the department’s proposal.

The $500,000 project is funded by a special appropriation in the state’s 2014-15 budget, which means it must conclude by June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year.

The results “will absolutely be used in the department’s 2015-16 marketing strategy,” Steele said.