Orange juice futures on the ICE exchange have fallen dramatically from the extremes of the 2024 supply crisis. The June 2026 monthly average was 158.91 USc/lb, with the July 2026 contract trading between 130.15 and 195.85 USc/lb during the month. At current levels around 160-175 USc/lb, prices have retraced more than half of the rally that took the market to an extraordinary 306.60 USc/lb 52-week high.
The primary driver of the correction is a recovery in Brazilian orange production. The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service forecasts Brazil's 2025/26 orange crop at approximately 330 million 90-pound boxes (13.5 million metric tons), up 3.7% from the previous season. Improved weather conditions in the key citrus-producing belt of Sao Paulo and the West-Southwest Minas Gerais have allowed trees to recover from the drought and heat stress that suppressed yields in 2024. Fundecitrus, the citrus industry research organization, pegged the crop for the Sao Paulo/Minas Gerais belt at 292.94 million boxes, a 26% increase from the severely depressed 2024/25 crop.
Florida's situation remains dire but no longer deteriorating. The USDA's July 2026 forecast put the state's 2025/26 all-orange crop at 12.9 million 90-pound boxes, marginally above earlier estimates of 12.0 million but still near the lowest since the 1930s. Citrus greening disease (huanglongbing), grove abandonment, and urbanization have reduced Florida's orange acreage to a fraction of its 1990s peak. The state now accounts for less than 5% of U.S. orange production by volume, down from over 80% in the 2000s.
The combination of Brazilian recovery and Florida stabilization means global orange supplies are no longer contracting. Rabobank estimates that FCOJ prices have fallen from approximately $7,000 per metric ton in late 2024 to roughly $2,850 per ton by May 2026. That five-month collapse reflects the rapid repricing of a market that had overshot fundamentals during the supply panic of 2024.
Demand side considerations are providing a floor. The price spike of 2024-2025 caused significant demand destruction in retail and food service channels, with many buyers switching to alternative juice blends or reducing juice content in products. The return to more normal pricing is gradually bringing those buyers back, but demand recovery has been slower than supply recovery. The in-plant delivery price for FCOJ has stabilized in the $2,800-3,000/ton range, suggesting that physical buyers see value at current levels.
The medium-term outlook depends on the interaction between Brazilian crop size and Floridian grove attrition. If Brazil maintains its recovery trajectory, the current correction could extend another 10-15% before finding a fundamental floor. But Florida's structural depletion means the U.S. market will remain dependent on imported Brazilian juice indefinitely, which puts a long-term floor under prices that is higher than the pre-2020 average.
The orange juice market has undergone one of the most dramatic price corrections in commodity history, and procurement teams should be taking advantage of it. At $2,850/t FCOJ, buyers are getting a 60% discount from the panic peak of 2024. The key question is whether the correction has further to run. For large-volume buyers who locked in high-priced contracts during the 2024 crisis, this is the window to renegotiate or layer in new coverage at current levels. The floor is being set by Florida's structural decline and the slow pace of consumer demand recovery. Buyers should commit to 6-9 months of forward coverage at current levels, treating any dip below $2,700/t FCOJ as an exceptional buying opportunity. The risk of waiting for lower prices is that Brazilian weather in the 2026/27 flowering season — which is underway — could easily reverse the supply recovery if dry conditions return. For non-juice buyers (concentrate, peel oil), the correction in juice has not been matched in by-products, so those remain tight markets.