ORANGE JUICE BUSINESS CROSSES THE BORDER

BRIAN DUNN

MONTREAL (FNS) -- Southern Gardens of Clewiston, Fla. has signed a contract with A. Lassonde here to supply the company orange juice for the Canadian market.

It's the first Canadian contract for Southern Gardens, which will be represented exclusively in Canada for private-label orange juice by Lassonde's Effex Marketing Inc. division.

The Florida company, owned by its 200 employees, is a division of United States Sugar Corp. of Clewiston and is the fourth-largest orange-juice processor in the state, according to Charles Lucas, vice president, citrus marketing and fruit procurement.

He said Southern Gardens sells to about 30 U.S. retailers, led by Kroger of Cincinnati and Public's of Lakeland, Fla. Its citrus groves produce about six percent of the oranges grown in Florida. The company will set aside 200,000 of its three million orange trees for Lassonde.

"This is a very significant contract for us," Lucas told SN. "It could represent about 20 percent of our overall sales in a few years." He declined to reveal what the company's overall sales volume is.

He said the deal would also provide an important entry into the Canadian market, where orange juice represents the bulk of some 2.5 million cases of private-label juices sold annually.

The pressed juice will be shipped to Lassonde's packaging plant here by tanker truck beginning in April. The company already makes not-from-concentrate orange juice under its Oasis label, but will now market all its juice in that category under the Oasis Florida Premium name.

Jean Gattuso, executive vice president and general manager at Lassonde, wouldn't reveal the length of the contract with Southern Gardens, but said the deal's short-term objective is to increase his company's share of the Quebec market for orange juice not made from concentrate from 18 percent to 25 percent. Lassonde's Oasis brand is now the second-largest after Tropicana, from Seagram.

Lucas said the agreement took about three years to finalize, after he first met Gattuso at a National Juices Products Association trade show a few years ago in Tampa, Fla.

"They're very demanding in their selection process," said Lucas. "This was a very thorough plan on their part."

Gattuso said Lassonde selected Southern Gardens from a list of four companies because of its consistent quality product, its modern pressing plant (built in 1994) and its solid financial position. He said the agreement with Southern Gardens will enable Lassonde to expand its orange-juice sales across Canada.

The public company had sales of $111.1 million (Cdn. $158.7 million) in 1997, primarily in Quebec. In addition to Oasis orange juice, Lassonde sells apple juice under the Rougemont label and fruit drinks containing 25 percent real fruit juice under the Fruite label.