Back When? 1940s

 The Link Between World War II and Frozen Orange Juice

Every weekday morning between 1949 and 1954 Bing Crosby would start his radio show by addressing his sidekick, “Ken, what’s the shopping hint for today?” Ken would immediately reply, “Well, it’s Minute Maid Fresh Frozen Orange juice, ladies. And your frozen food store has it.” Although O.J. is common on modern American breakfast tables, back when Bing was doing his radio thing, the idea of drinking once frozen orange juice was “nothing short of sensational.” Frozen orange juice as a concept was not new. Since at least the 1930s, citrus farmers in Florida and California had been juicing their wares, packing them into cans, freezing them, and then shipping them off to middle America. Unfortunately almost immediately after a can of frozen orange juice left the farm it started to lose all resemblance to actual orange juice. The drink’s essential oils would begin to degrade and what was once a tart and refreshing beverage quickly transformed into a discolored orange glop. “Cooked” is how one researcher described it; reminiscent of turpentine, claimed another. USDA scientists and agricultural cooperatives had been hard at work trying to resolve this orange juice issue all throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but most of their efforts sim ply accelerated the unsavory turpentine-flavoring process. Apple juice and tomato juice, by contrast, survived the freezing and transport process virtually unscathed, which meant that most Americans at their time started their day with eggs, bacon and a refreshing glass of tomato juice. It wasn’t until World War II that the orange juice issue would be finally resolved. Desperate to keep its troops well fed with Vitamin C, in 1942 the U.S. Army quartermaster offered a lucrative contract to whomever could figure out how to produce decent-tasting frozen orange juice. There would be no success until 1945, when a group of USDA scientists working in Florida developed a process to evaporate the liquid from fresh juice at relatively low temperatures. The result was a concentrated mass of orange. To this they added just a dash of fresh juice, which returned some of the essential oils and helped the drink to retain its citrusy flavor EQUIPMENT / even in transit. Richard Stetson Mores pounced on this technic. A businessman with a strong science background, his research corporation had already developed a “vacuum process to powder drugs, coat optical lenses, and dehydrate food” During the OPERATING LINES war effort, Morse aided the army by powdering penicillin and developing staples like instant coffee. In 1945, the army asked Morse to produce 500,000 lbs. of palatable orange juice concentrate. Morse set up the Florida Foods Corporation to fulfill this order. The war ended before the orange juice could ship out, but thankfully for the American breakfast table, Morse remained set on making O.J.