North America fruit juice industry in history

Fruits were introduced in America by European settlers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In addition to being eaten fresh, the fruits were pressed or squeezed into juice.

The fruit juice processing industry of the United States is said to have been started by Dr Thomas B Welch and his son Charles in Vineland, New Jersey.

In 1869, Welch with his wife Lucy and his son, he harvested several baskets of Concord grapes, cooked them briefly, strained them through cheesecloth and poured the juice into 12 glass bottles.

By applying the theory of Louis Pasteur to the processing of Concord grapes they were able to produce ‘unfermented sacramental wine’.

Welch began marketing the product to church in southern New Jersey. By 1893, grape juice had become a national favorite beverage in the United States as thousands sampled it at the Chicago World’s Fair.

Thus began the production of preserved fruit juices, which was followed by a huge development in the 20th century.

In the home, fruit was juiced by hand until 1930, when the first commercial juicing machine was marketed by Norma Walker who encouraged diet or raw food and juices. A new addition to the fruit juice market was frozen juices, which first marketed during the 1930s.

During the 1950s, fruit juice became established as an integral part of the North American diet. A dramatic increase in consumption occurred in the years after the mid 1970s.

The demand was driven with the perception of a healthy life style and it was reinforced by the application of UHT (ultra high temperature) and aseptic packaging to fruit juices.
North America fruit juice industry in history

History of grapefruit to United States

In the United States, named of grapefruit appeared in the official list of the American Pomological Society as early as 1897.

In 1683 Captain Shaddock, an officer in the British East India Company, gave seeds from the Malaysia grapefruit, which is the pomelo not the true grapefruit to William Jones, a planter from Mandeville, Jamaica. 

Later, the pomelo spread to other Caribbean islands. Sometime in the 18th country, the pomelo hybridized with the sweet orange, evidently without human intervention, to yield the grapefruit.

Griffith Hughes British cleric was the first person in 1750 to describe the new fruit as ‘forbidden fruit’. Later in 1789, Patrick Browne mentioned it under the name ‘forbidden fruit’ or ‘smaller shaddock’ form Jamaica. 

According to one account Odette Felipe, a Spanish aristocrat, introduced the grapefruit into Florida in 1809. The originally grapefruit planted in Florida were the seedy types such as the Duncan.

Duncan was the leading cultivar for many years in the Florida and Texas and was introduced into all the grapefruit growing areas of the world. It was not immediate success. Some Floridians grew the grapefruit as an ornamental.

By 1910, farmers were growing grapefruit in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and in California and Arizona.

Today the production of grapefruit in Florida is so heavy that the fresh fruit market cannot absorbed the crop and the bulk of the fruit, therefore has to be converted into canned juice.

The processing of grapefruit into segments and juices was initiated in the late 1920’s as a means of expanding market outlets for the rapid increase in United States production.
History of grapefruit to United States