Surprisingly, when it comes to making OJ, it's not the packaging or the trucks--growing the fruit produces the single greatest proportion of the carbon footprint of Tropicana orange juice, as PepsiCo just hired an outside consultant to determine. Citrus growers employ huge amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, which is made from natural gas.
Tropicana, which recently redesigned its cartons and offers a dizzying number of varieties with add-ins from omega-3s to mango, did launch an organically grown brand in 2007; maybe they can start advertising it "Now With One-Third Less Carbon?"
Related Stories: | Topics:Innovation, Technology, Design, Ethonomics, biodiversity, Green, Sustainable, environment, PepsiCo Inc., Citrus Groves, Fruit and Vegetable Farming, Crop Production, Vitamins and Supplements |
Recent Comments | 1 Total
January 27, 2009 at 10:54am by Denis Baldwin
This is incredibly troubling. I live in the sunshine state/citrus state and I'm incredibly concerned not just about the impact from the production natural gas-made fertilizer, but also the effect on these fertilizers to our ground water. I'm surrounded by orange groves and I've never even given it a second thought until I read this.