Overregulation is not pulp fiction – Inside Sources

Orange juice doesn’t taste as good anymore when brand-name bottles cost around $7, according to a recent report from ABC News report, “In the U.S., a 12-ounce can of frozen orange juice concentrate cost an average of $4.27 in April, up 42 percent from the same month a year earlier, according to government data. … Orange juice consumption has fallen 15 percent to 25 percent in major global markets — including the United States and the European Union — over the past year.”

Bad weather and disappointing harvests are straining supply, and recently released Freedom of Information Act data shows that outdated federal rules and a regulatory turf war are making the problem worse. Policymakers need to throw out burdensome regulations and let the sap flow.

The out-of-control regulations have entangled the simple drink in a pulpy web of administrative subordination. The Food and Drug Administration maintains “standards of identity” for various food and drink products, specifying the specific characteristics a product must have to receive a specific food label. The FDA, for example, has long held that frozen cherry pies must contain a sufficient amount of cherries (by weight) and not too many blemished cherries.

The standards for orange juice are even more convoluted. The FDA pays special attention to the “Brix level” of pasteurized orange juice, which measures the fruit’s internal sugar constants. The agency considers anything below a Brix level of 10.5 percent unacceptable, forcing orange juice makers to be increasingly selective about the oranges they use.

The Florida Citrus Processors Association and Florida Citrus Mutual noted in a July 2022 petition to the FDA that “since 2005, Florida orange trees have become increasingly infected with Huanglongbing (HLB, or citrus greening disease).” … Experts do not expect the average Brix level to return to previous average values ​​without solving the HLB problem, which remains incurable.

While California’s orange crop is produced primarily for the fresh market, citrus processors use nearly the entire Florida orange crop to produce pasteurized “not from concentrate” orange juice. As a result, producers face an increasingly difficult choice: rising cultivation costs or avoiding calling their product “orange juice,” which could make the shopping experience very confusing.

It took the FDA more than a year to investigate the petition, and even then it responded by asking for information from interested parties rather than taking concrete action. Frustratingly, the process remains in limbo.

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance Foundation recently requested internal FDA correspondence to shed light on the breakneck speed of reform. The resulting trove of information provided a key insight into the process. Since 2022, FDA staff have been working on the petition and verifying that the nutritional data submitted by petitioners was accurate. The Achilles heel has been, unexpectedly, the Department of Agriculture, which must be “kept in the loop.”

When the FDA contacted the USDA and asked if there would be “any concerns” if “we removed the minimum Brix level for orange juice,” the USDA curtly responded that the policy change “would not be consistent with the Codex standard because 10 Brix is ​​the absolute minimum.”

The USDA has its own minimum Brix requirements for juice, and the FDA can’t force its counterpart to act. That doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon, because, as one FDA official notes, “I’m not aware of Codex currently working on any updates to the standard.”

These frustrating exchanges offer a sobering lesson for companies and their consumers. Prominent agencies like the FDA may want to make pro-consumer changes but will be thwarted by regulators lurking in the background. Meanwhile, petitions remain on the sidelines as agencies half-heartedly ask for more information.

Unfortunately, these bureaucratic machinations are not pulp fiction. Consumers can expect astronomical orange juice prices until regulators stop spoiling their mood with promising reforms.