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Tropicana Brands Group
Tropicana Brands Group (/ˌtrɒpɪˈkænə/ TROP-ih-KAN-ə) is an American fruit-based beverage company. It was founded in 1947 by Anthony T. Rossi in Bradenton, Florida. Between 1998 and 2021, it was a subsidiary of PepsiCo. In August 2021, 61% of Tropicana was sold along with the rest of PepsiCo's juice brand portfolio for $3.3 billion to French investment fund PAI Partners. PepsiCo retained the remaining 39% of the company's ownership.
Tropicana traces its roots to Anthony T. Rossi, a native of Sicily in Italy, who immigrated to the United States in 1921 when he was 21. He drove a taxi, was a grocer in New York, then worked as a farmer in Virginia. He then moved to Florida in 1940, where he farmed, and was a restaurateur. His first involvement with the Florida citrus industry was creating fresh fruit gift boxes. These were sold in Macy's and Gimbels department stores, all in the city of New York.
In 1947, Rossi settled in Palmetto, Florida, and began packing fruit gift boxes and jars of sectioned fruit for salads under the name Manatee River Packing Company. As the fruit segment business grew, the company moved to a larger location in East Bradenton, Florida, and changed its name to Fruit Industries. Fruit Industries continued to grow, even started supplying ingredients for the fresh fruit salads on the menu of New York's famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Rossi began producing frozen concentrated orange juice at the East Bradenton location as a natural extension of the fruit section business.
In 1952, Rossi purchased the Grapefruit Canning Company in Bradenton. The fresh fruit segments and orange juice business was profitable enough that he discontinued the production of fruit boxes. He developed flash pasteurization in 1954, a preservation process that raised the temperature of juice for a short time to only minimally affect its taste. It provided an alternative to the frozen product, which both heated and concentrated the juice. Tropicana Pure Premium chilled juice became the company's flagship product.
The company developed a trademarked cartoon mascot for the brand called Tropic-Ana, a barefoot young girl carrying oranges on her head and wearing clothing that resembles a Hawaiian grass skirt and lei. She appeared prominently on the juice cartons and even the train cars used to transport the juice. Her image was phased out during the 1980s.
Ed Price was hired as executive vice president and director in 1955 and represented the company as chairman of the Florida Citrus Commission. In 1957, the company's name was changed to Tropicana Products, Inc. to reflect the growing appeal of the Tropicana brand.
Tropicana purchased one million dollars' worth of refrigerated trucks to deliver Pure Premium in the mid to late fifties. Soon, 2,000 dairies delivered Pure Premium orange juice to the doorsteps of consumers each morning. By 1958, a ship, S.S. Tropicana, delivered 1.5 million US gallons (1,200,000 imp gal; 5,700 m3) of juice to New York each week from the new base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. From 1960 to 1970, Tropicana utilized piggyback trailers on flatcars to move the juice more efficiently.
In 1970, Tropicana orange juice was shipped as finished goods via refrigerated boxcars in one weekly round-trip from Florida to Kearny, New Jersey. By the following year, the company was operating two 65-car unit trains a week, each carrying around 1 million US gallons (830,000 imp gal; 3,800 m3) of juice. The "Great White Juice Train" (the first unit train in the food industry, consisting of 150 100-short ton insulated boxcars fabricated in the Alexandria, Virginia shops of Fruit Growers Express) commenced service on June 7, 1971, over the 1,250-mile (2,010 km) route. An additional 100 cars were soon incorporated into the fleet, and small mechanical refrigeration units were installed to keep temperatures constant on hot days. In 2004, Tropicana's rail fleet of 514 cars traveled over 35,000,000 mi (56,000,000 km) – a method that is three times more fuel-efficient than other shipping methods.[citation needed]
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Tropicana Brands Group
Tropicana Brands Group (/ˌtrɒpɪˈkænə/ TROP-ih-KAN-ə) is an American fruit-based beverage company. It was founded in 1947 by Anthony T. Rossi in Bradenton, Florida. Between 1998 and 2021, it was a subsidiary of PepsiCo. In August 2021, 61% of Tropicana was sold along with the rest of PepsiCo's juice brand portfolio for $3.3 billion to French investment fund PAI Partners. PepsiCo retained the remaining 39% of the company's ownership.
Tropicana traces its roots to Anthony T. Rossi, a native of Sicily in Italy, who immigrated to the United States in 1921 when he was 21. He drove a taxi, was a grocer in New York, then worked as a farmer in Virginia. He then moved to Florida in 1940, where he farmed, and was a restaurateur. His first involvement with the Florida citrus industry was creating fresh fruit gift boxes. These were sold in Macy's and Gimbels department stores, all in the city of New York.
In 1947, Rossi settled in Palmetto, Florida, and began packing fruit gift boxes and jars of sectioned fruit for salads under the name Manatee River Packing Company. As the fruit segment business grew, the company moved to a larger location in East Bradenton, Florida, and changed its name to Fruit Industries. Fruit Industries continued to grow, even started supplying ingredients for the fresh fruit salads on the menu of New York's famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Rossi began producing frozen concentrated orange juice at the East Bradenton location as a natural extension of the fruit section business.
In 1952, Rossi purchased the Grapefruit Canning Company in Bradenton. The fresh fruit segments and orange juice business was profitable enough that he discontinued the production of fruit boxes. He developed flash pasteurization in 1954, a preservation process that raised the temperature of juice for a short time to only minimally affect its taste. It provided an alternative to the frozen product, which both heated and concentrated the juice. Tropicana Pure Premium chilled juice became the company's flagship product.
The company developed a trademarked cartoon mascot for the brand called Tropic-Ana, a barefoot young girl carrying oranges on her head and wearing clothing that resembles a Hawaiian grass skirt and lei. She appeared prominently on the juice cartons and even the train cars used to transport the juice. Her image was phased out during the 1980s.
Ed Price was hired as executive vice president and director in 1955 and represented the company as chairman of the Florida Citrus Commission. In 1957, the company's name was changed to Tropicana Products, Inc. to reflect the growing appeal of the Tropicana brand.
Tropicana purchased one million dollars' worth of refrigerated trucks to deliver Pure Premium in the mid to late fifties. Soon, 2,000 dairies delivered Pure Premium orange juice to the doorsteps of consumers each morning. By 1958, a ship, S.S. Tropicana, delivered 1.5 million US gallons (1,200,000 imp gal; 5,700 m3) of juice to New York each week from the new base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. From 1960 to 1970, Tropicana utilized piggyback trailers on flatcars to move the juice more efficiently.
In 1970, Tropicana orange juice was shipped as finished goods via refrigerated boxcars in one weekly round-trip from Florida to Kearny, New Jersey. By the following year, the company was operating two 65-car unit trains a week, each carrying around 1 million US gallons (830,000 imp gal; 3,800 m3) of juice. The "Great White Juice Train" (the first unit train in the food industry, consisting of 150 100-short ton insulated boxcars fabricated in the Alexandria, Virginia shops of Fruit Growers Express) commenced service on June 7, 1971, over the 1,250-mile (2,010 km) route. An additional 100 cars were soon incorporated into the fleet, and small mechanical refrigeration units were installed to keep temperatures constant on hot days. In 2004, Tropicana's rail fleet of 514 cars traveled over 35,000,000 mi (56,000,000 km) – a method that is three times more fuel-efficient than other shipping methods.[citation needed]