In addition to processing sugar, United States Sugar Corporation’s other principal business is citrus.

Southern Gardens Citrus began operations in 1994 with the first citrus processing plant to be built in Florida in 25 years. The plant can now process more than 140 million gallons of orange juice annually.

During the October-to-June harvest season, the citrus plant processes more than 20 million boxes of oranges into the popular natural strength, not-from-concentrate premium Florida orange juice and orange juice concentrate. An industry leader in fresh orange juice, Southern Gardens now has 56 one-million-gallon aseptic (100 percent bacteria free) storage tanks.

Southern Gardens Groves is one of the state’s largest citrus groves with 32,000 acres and more than 3 million orange trees. Being both a grower and processor helps the company ensure the quality of the fruit from the moment it is picked, through its processing, and all the way to its delivery to its customers.

How orange juice is processed
Jim Snively is vice president of grove operations at Southern Gardens. He has lived in Lake Placid since 1988 and enjoys the 50-mile drive to the plant.  

“It’s no big deal. I’ve always done a lot of driving in this business. It’s just part of it,” Snively said.

Snively received his degree from Florida State College in Lakeland in citrus business.

“I’ve always grown oranges. My great grandfather was a citrus farmer in the 1890s. My family was always involved. It’s in my blood. I love the challenge of growing citrus. And it’s fun,” Snively said.

Previously he was the area grove manager for Consolidated Citrus.

“This is the same business, just a step up for me. Now I oversee all grove operations from harvest through production. I supervise 32,000 acres with three grove managers, a harvest manager, a safety manager, an environmental manager, a research horticulturalist, and an equipment coordinator,” Snively said.

Oranges are delivered in trailers, which are elevated so that the fruit can be gently unloaded. They are washed to remove dirt, leaves and twigs. After remaining stems are mechanically removed, the fruit goes through the first grading process to remove damaged fruit.

Conveyors and bucket elevators then carry the fruit into storage bins. Each bin holds one trailer of fruit. On its way to the bins, a required sample of fruit is taken by the Florida Department of Agriculture for testing to ensure Florida’s high quality standards are maintained.

After the fruit passes state inspection it is released from the bins by quality control for final washing and grading, where it’s sorted by size as it enters one of the three juice extractor lines. The extractor lines run 23 hours a day and squeeze the juice out of 23,000 oranges every minute, resulting in 650,000 gallons of orange juice every day.

Snively said, the juice extractors separate the juice and pulp from the peel, seeds and membrane. At the same time, orange oil is squeezed from the peel. The recovered orange oil is used in flavorings and chemical applications. The peel, seeds and membranes are conveyed to the feed mill to be converted into cattle feed.

The juice and pulp continue to the juice finishers, where they’re able to tailor the juice’s pulp content to customer specifications. Pulp cells and pulp wash are separated and recovered as by-products that are used in fruit beverages.

At this point, the juice processing splits into production of natural strength and concentrated orange juice. Not-from-concentrate juice is pasteurized, quickly heated to destroy bacteria and then chilled to 32 degrees.

For concentrated orange juice, evaporation units remove 85 percent of the water. Each of the three units can remove nearly 25,000 gallons of water per hour, Snively explained. The essence and aromas, major by-products, are recovered in this step to be used in the flavor and fragrance industries.

The concentrate moves through a chilling process, where it is cooked to 34 degrees. By now the juice has been reduced to one-sixth its former volume. This concentrate is blended to the specifications of each customer. Then it is further chilled to less than 20 degrees and transferred to tank farm storage.

In the concentrate tank farm, 5 million gallons of concentrated orange juice are stored in 200,000-gallon bulk tanks at a constant temperature. In addition, the tank farm can store cold pressed oil and essence.

The NFC juice is stored in one of the plant’s 56 one-million-gallon indoor tanks. Juice from both the NFC and concentrate tanks can be directly loaded into tanker trucks for transportation to the customers, Snively said.

Conveyors transfer whatever is remaining after the juice, essences, oils and pulp wash are recovered, to the feed mill. It is pressed and heated to remove moisture in a large dryer. Waste heat from the dryer is used to evaporate the liquid removed in the presses. In this process, Di’Limonene, a valuable, natural solvent, is recovered. Citrus molasses is added to the dried pulp and peel to make cattle feed.

Water from the plant’s evaporation units is recycled and treated, then used to irrigate citrus groves, saving 500,000 gallons of water a day.

U.S. Sugar exemplifies efficiency, self-sufficiency, and environmental compatibility.

Tours are from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, October through March, with group rates available. The Sugarland Express is reserved through the Clewiston Chamber of Commerce (863) 983-7979. The tour visits the sugar mill and refinery, and includes lunch at the Clewiston Inn.  In addition, the bus goes to Southern Gardens Citrus, where people can see the outside of the structure and view the fruit going into the plant.  Since visitors are not permitted inside the plant, a video of the juice processing is shown. Total cost is $27.50 per person.