Ship Grapefruit in America
Image by ♥ he@rt ♥ via Flickr
America has always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the grapefruit. When it was first arrived in Florida in 1823, locals didn't want anything to do with it. They preferred their sweet oranges to the sour taste of this new exotic fruit. For years, grapefruit crops in Florida were small and the fruit was seen as a mere novelty.
Then in 1893 the first grapefruit crop was planted in South Texas. While farmers did ship grapefruit to friends and family, there were no commercial crops, i.e., they were not sold. These early grapefruits were grown as simple experiments. And the test results were underwhelming, at best. It seemed that folks in Texas had the same complaints as those in Florida–the grapefruit was simply too sour.
By 1929, farmers in Texas had all but given up on grapefruit when the most successful mutation in the history of fruit suddenly appeared. It was christened the “Ruby” because its flesh was red instead of pink or white. It was also said to be much sweeter than the other varieties. This was confirmed when local residents suddenly started requesting the new Ruby grapefruit.
Within five years of the advent of the Ruby an entire industry had sprung up in South Texas. Farmers began to ship grapefruit to other states and later to other nations. Florida, the place where the first grapefruit crops had been cultivated, planted huge grapefruit crops in the 1930's. They soon became the leading US producer of the successful new fruit.
Grapefruit consumption would continue to increase for decades until the 1970's when there was a sudden spike. The reason for this increase was due to a new diet fad appropriately named the grapefruit diet. Because it was believed that the grapefruit contained fat-fighting enzymes, it was singled out. Grapefruits and grapefruit juice became a standard part of a daily diet for millions of women and some men too.
In time, however, people on the grapefruit diet suddenly started to fall ill. Not surprisingly, Americans blamed the grapefruit and sales dropped off. Of course, the inherent danger of the grapefruit diet had nothing to do with the fruit. Rather, it was because the program required dieters to cut their caloric intake from 2000 to 800.
After a few years, producers began to ship grapefruit in large quantities again. But bad weather and frost has had a dramatic effect on grapefruit production from year to year. The reason for this is simple: grapefruit can only be cultivated in a sub tropical climate, and there aren't many regions in the US that fit the bill. For example, Texas accounts for more than 20 percent of the county's grapefruit supply, though they grow everything on less than 20,000 acres.
With the introduction of concentrated frozen grapefruit juice in the late nineteen-eighties, Americans once again loved the grapefruit. New, sweeter varieties of the “Ruby” red became top sellers in both the frozen and fresh fruit juice markets and have encourage farmers to ship more grapefruit than ever before.
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