WINTER HAVEN – The Florida Citrus Commission on Monday voted to suspend minimum acid levels for the rest of the 2015-16 season on fresh oranges and tangelos. The unanimous vote came at an emergency telephone meeting called earlier that day at the request of Florida Citrus Packers, the trade group representing fresh fruit packinghouses.
J. Peter Chaires, Packers' CEO, said members made the request because a large amount of the fruit was not meeting the existing standard of 0.4 percent citrus acid and could not be sold. Chaires and Ellis Hunt, commission chairman and Lake Wales-based grower and packinghouse operator, attributed the lower acid to the extremely warm fall and winter affecting the trees and fruit production.
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