Why is Orange Juice Getting Squeezed out of Americans' Homes?

Once a staple of American households and the commodities market, frozen concentrated orange juice now appears to be vanishing from breakfast tables across the country as well as market portfolios.  Ingalls & Snyder Investment Management Senior V.P. Roger Corrado weighed in on the factors that caused it to fall out of favor with consumers and investors.

“Orange juice kind of lost favor with all the diets, you know, the low-sugar diets and all that.  I mean, when Atkins came around the orange juice really lost a lot of its appeal…everybody would always say, you know, including my mom, ‘have a glass of orange juice in the morning, it gives you the energy,’” Corrado told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.

But according to Corrado, the changing trends in diet along with the expanding choices available have led Americans to have an unfavorable view of orange juice.

“Now with all the energy drinks out there as we were discussing, every other choice, it seems that orange juice is actually [an] unhealthy choice and you can see it in the market and the consumption.”

Corrado explained that along with declines in consumers buying frozen concentrated orange juice directly, “most of your orange juice, if you look at a carton, it says ‘made from concentrate’…so that’s really the market we made from concentrate.”

But now with more and more consumers preferring foods with fresh ingredients, even cartons of orange juice ‘made from concentrate,’ are losing favor with consumers.

“Now it seems everybody, especially in the past let’s say five years, everything’s fresh you know, everything you get is fresh, you want fresh this, you want fresh that, so that’s pretty much a lot to do with the concentrate orange juice whether it’s in a container made from concentrate or you’re actually still mixing it, which I don’t really know of anybody who does.  I mean my mom is still alive but I don’t think she even does it.”

Corrado then weighed in on the drinks replacing orange juice on Americans’ breakfast tables.

“You could say what’s taken its place is probably a lot of these alternate drinks, you see anything from Gatorade (NYSE:PEP) to Powerade (NYSE:KO).” Corrado continued, “Are people drinking those for breakfast?  I assume they are.  They start the day with a Red Bull or they start the day with a Gatorade or Powerade as opposed to what I would say even such, a healthy glass of orange juice.”

Corrado also discussed the decline in food prices and the cultural shifts he saw as a factor.

“I think it’s just the whole culture now, the way people are eating…the smaller meals, the fad diets.  You know, everything from red meat to orange juice, we could mention everything, you know, like look at that plate of sausage [referring to some breakfast meals on the table], I mean who is gonna really eat that…the butter and all that.”