Hurricane Ian in late September caused substantial fruit drop at the majority of Alico Citrus’ groves, the company reported in its recent fiscal year 2022 financial results. The fiscal year ended Sept. 30.
“Fortunately, tree damage was largely limited to only one property,” said John Kiernan, president and chief executive officer. “This lost fruit impacted our fiscal year 2022 financial results through an aggregate of approximately $23 million of one-time items for casualty losses and inventory adjustments.”
Kiernan said fiscal year 2023 “will see lower levels of revenue because we have less fruit available for sale. Based upon our prior experience with storms of this nature, we anticipate it may take up to two seasons or more for our groves to recover to pre-hurricane production levels.”
For 2022, Alico Citrus harvested approximately 5.5 million boxes of fruit, a decrease of 12.9% from the prior fiscal year. The decrease was principally attributable to greater fruit drop and a freeze event that occurred in January 2022.
ORANGE PRICES RISE
As anticipated, the company saw its average orange blended price per pound solids rise from $2.45 in the prior fiscal year to $2.63 in fiscal year 2022. The company anticipates market prices in the 2022–23 harvest season to be consistent or slightly above the past season’s market prices. It expects those prices largely due to continued consumption of not-from-concentrate orange juice by retail consumers, low levels of inventory stocks at the juice processors and a tighter global supply for oranges.
MOVING FORWARD
“As it has been for approximately 124 years, Alico remains focused on carrying on its business for the long term,” Kiernan said. “In fact, we believe that we are the only citrus grower in the state of Florida that closed on a small acquisition for additional citrus acres immediately after Hurricane Ian in October.”
Kiernan said Alico has planted approximately 1.9 million new trees since 2017. That planting “has materially increased tree density in our existing and recently purchased groves,” he said.
See a full release about Alico’s fiscal year results here.
Source: Alico Inc.
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