Tropicana Products
Tropicana logo
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| Type | Mainly orange juice |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United States |
| Introduced | 1947 |
| Color | Orange |
| Website |
www (UK) www (US & rest of world) |
Tropicana Products, Inc. is an American multinational company which primarily makes fruit-based beverages. It was founded in 1947 by Anthony T. Rossi in Bradenton, Florida. Since 1998 it has been owned by PepsiCo. Tropicana's headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois. The company specializes in the production of orange juice.
Anthony T. Rossi (1900–1993) was born in Italy on the island of Sicily. He had the equivalent of a high school education and immigrated to the United States when he was 21 years old. He drove a taxi, was a grocer in New York, farmed in Virginia, and then moved to Florida in 1940 where he farmed and was a restaurateur. His first involvement with the Florida citrus industry was fresh fruit gift boxes sold by Macy's and Gimbels department stores in New York City, 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. The ingredients for the fresh fruit salads on the menu of New York’s famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel were supplied by Fruit Industries. At the east Bradenton location, Rossi began producing frozen concentrate orange juice as a natural extension of the fruit section business.
In 1952, with growth of the orange juice business in mind, Rossi purchased the Grapefruit Canning Company in Bradenton. The fresh fruit segments and orange juice business were so successful that he discontinued production of fruit boxes. He developed flash pasteurization in 1954, a process that rapidly raised the temperature of juice for a short time to preserve its fresh taste. For the first time, consumers could have the fresh taste of pure not-from-concentrate juice in a ready to serve chilled package. The juice, Tropicana Pure Premium, became the company’s flagship product.
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