Orange Groves (United States) — NAICS 11131

An investor's primer. Figures are U.S. unless noted, and are the most recent official releases available. Facts labeled "reported" are sourced; forward-looking statements are flagged as judgments.

Short page — single-child pass-through. In the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), the 5-digit industry 11131 "Orange Groves" contains exactly one 6-digit national industry: 111310, also "Orange Groves." The two codes describe the same thing, so this level adds no economic content beyond its child. This page gives the rollup framing and this level's own ground-truth figures, then points you to the full 111310 primer for detail. Everything substantive — company-by-company universe, grove economics, demand, regulation, and how to invest — lives there.

1. Overview

NAICS 11131 covers farms primarily engaged in growing oranges — the grove itself, up to the farm gate, before the juice plant, packing house, or retail brand [7]. Because it has a single child (111310), the 5-digit industry and the 6-digit industry are effectively identical; no aggregation across differing sub-lines occurs.

The one thing an investor needs to carry down from this level: U.S. orange growing is a land-, water-, labor-, and biology-intensive business in acute distress. A bacterial tree disease — citrus greening, known technically as HLB (Huanglongbing) — plus repeated hurricanes have cut Florida's orange crop by more than 90% over two decades, leaving a collapsing Florida juice sector and a smaller, steadier California fresh-fruit sector [10][11]. National output is now about 2.4 million tons a year, roughly three-quarters from California [1][3]. There is almost no clean way to own a U.S. orange grove through the public markets — the meaningful capital is largely private. See 111310 for the full argument.

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

NAICS is hierarchical: a 5-digit industry normally rolls up two or more 6-digit national industries. Here it does not. The full contents of 11131 are:

Because the parent and child share the same definition, every size, structure, and economics figure for 11131 is by construction the figure for 111310. This level exists only to hold the industry's place in the classification tree; it is not a broader grouping. Adjacent orange-relevant activity is deliberately outside this branch — lemons, limes, grapefruit, and mandarins are 111320 (Citrus, except Orange, Groves), and packing houses, juice processors, and consumer brands are separate manufacturing/wholesale codes entirely [7]. That is where most of the industry's dollars and famous brands actually sit — not in the grove line.

3. Size (this level's rollup)

Our ingested ground-truth stats file for NAICS 11131 contains no metrics — no establishment, employment, payroll, acreage, or revenue total for this node. We say so plainly and do not invent one. Because 11131 equals 111310, the child's ground-truth figure applies unchanged:

• U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) size standard: a business in orange growing is "small" if average annual receipts are $4.0 million or less (2023) [6]. This is a government-contracting threshold, not a measure of industry revenue or market size. Most orange farms clear the $4 million bar comfortably; by federal definition this is a small-business industry.

Best official operating measures (USDA) — carried up from the child, all attributable to this level 1-for-1:

• National, 2024–25 marketing year: about 307,800 bearing acres produced 2.394 million tons of oranges worth roughly $1.09 billion at the packinghouse door, split about 1.47 million tons fresh / 0.93 million tons processing [1].
• 2025–26 forecast (USDA, April 2026): about 2.53 million tons nationally — 1.94 million in California, 550,000 in Florida, 39,000 in Texas — confirming California at roughly three-quarters of the crop [3]. Forecast, not a final result.

Undercount and coverage caveat. Standard federal business registers understate this industry: the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics both exclude crop production (NAICS 111) [8], so there is no reliable payroll-firm or establishment count the way there is for restaurants. The authoritative operating census is USDA's Census of Agriculture (2022) [9]. Ownership is fragmented and family-dominated at the grove level, which compounds the undercount; we therefore state no precise national farm count. Directionally, the commercial grower base is a few thousand operations and shrinks each season [10].

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

With one child, there is nothing to compare across sub-industries — value concentration is simply the 111310 picture. In brief:

• Public pure plays barely exist. Alico (Nasdaq: ALCO) wound down its Florida citrus after 2024–25 and is now a land-transition situation; Limoneira (Nasdaq: LMNR) has negligible, Chile-based orange exposure and is really lemons/farmland/water; Dole (NYSE: DOLE) and Fresh Del Monte (NYSE: FDP) are broad produce proxies; Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and PepsiCo (Nasdaq: PEP) are trace beverage-side exposure as buyers/brand owners, not growers [15][16][37].
• The real ownership is private: The Wonderful Company / Wonderful Citrus (America's largest citrus grower, ~74,000 acres farmed), U.S. Sugar / Southern Gardens Citrus, IMG Citrus, and cooperatives Sunkist Growers (California fresh) and Florida's Natural Growers (Florida juice), above a concentrated, largely private/foreign-owned processing-and-brand tier (Tropicana, Cutrale, Citrosuco, Louis Dreyfus) [18][20][22][17][24][37].

Full company table, acreage, and tickers are in the 111310 primer.

5. How the money works

Identical to the child. Orange growing is a perennial-crop, land-heavy business:

saleable boxes/acre × realized price/box − grove care − harvest & hauling − packing or processing − overhead & financing.

Fresh oranges sell by the carton at a premium with grading/rejection risk; processing oranges are priced on pound-solids (juice-sugar content, measured as Brix) at lower per-box value but a steadier outlet. New orchards are non-bearing for ~4–5 years, then productive for ~20–30 years, so replanting is a major capital decision [16]. HLB broke the unit economics by cutting yield, fruit size, and Brix while raising cost per acre — which is why exiting and monetizing the land became rational for large Florida owners [15][14]. Prices are volatile: FCOJ (frozen concentrated orange juice) futures on ICE (the Intercontinental Exchange) spiked near a record $5.50/lb in December 2024, then crashed below $2.25/lb by April 2025 [34][35]. Detail in 111310.

6. Demand drivers

Fresh and processed demand move in opposite directions. Fresh oranges are relatively stable (favoring California), while orange juice is in structural long-run decline — U.S. orange- and grapefruit-juice consumption fell about 57% from 2005–06 levels, and USDA projects domestic OJ production of just 99 million single-strength-equivalent (SSE) gallons in 2025–26 against imports above 580 million SSE gallons [4][5]. Fresh has the better structural story; juice offers pricing benefit from scarcity, not volume growth. See 111310.

7. Regulation

The binding issues are plant disease, food safety, pesticides, labor, water, land use, and trade. The dominant one is plant health: HLB is spread by the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), and USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) states there is no cure and imposes quarantines [12][13]. Other regulators include USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) (marketing orders), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (produce safety), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (pesticides/worker protection), the Department of Labor (DOL) H-2A guest-labor program, and California groundwater rules under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) [32][28][29][30][31]. Full breakdown in 111310.

8. Consolidation

With a single child, there is no cross-sub-industry consolidation story — only the child's. Consolidation here is really contraction: Florida's processor count fell from dozens to a handful, packing houses have closed, acreage keeps converting to housing or other crops, and Alico's citrus exit is the highest-profile example of an owner deciding the risk no longer justified staying [15][38]. Globally the U.S. is a price-taker to Brazil's dominant juice-concentrate complex (Cutrale, Citrosuco, Louis Dreyfus) [37]. Detail in 111310.

9. Risks

The child's risk set applies unchanged to this level: disease (HLB) — existential in Florida, spreading in California and Texas, no commercial cure [12][14]; weather — hurricanes and freezes with no quick replant fix [10]; demand erosion in juice [4][5]; cost/labor inflation (rising H-2A wages, fertilizer, spray) [31]; water limits in California [21]; price volatility in FCOJ [34][35]; trade-policy shifts on imported juice [37]; land conversion / slow biology [15]; customer concentration; and data opacity, since private groves escape standard federal business statistics [8].

10. How to invest and the outlook

Public routes are thin. Treat ALCO as a land-transition situation, LMNR as diversified lemon/farmland/water, DOLE/FDP as broad produce, and KO/PEP as trace beverage exposure — none is a pure U.S. orange-grove operator [15][16]. FCOJ futures/options on ICE give direct but highly speculative price exposure [34]. Listed farmland owners (Gladstone Land (LAND), Farmland Partners (FPI)) hold permanent-crop acreage but little orange-specific exposure.

Private routes are where the real exposure is: acquiring or leasing groves with verified water, disease, and tree-age characteristics; land-banking in Florida for development optionality; financing replanting, irrigation, cold storage, packing, or processing; and backing disease-tolerant varieties and grove technology [15][37]. Useful diligence metrics are industry-specific — bearing vs. productive tree acres, boxes per acre, fresh-vs-processed mix, on-tree price per box, pound-solids yield, tree age, HLB incidence and treatment cost, water security, and alternative-use land value — not utility rate base, REIT-style multiples, or mining cost curves.

Outlook (forward-looking judgment). USDA's 2025–26 forecast (~2.53 million tons) reflects a new geography: California fresh looks more resilient while Florida juice faces continued structural decline unless HLB science (tolerant rootstocks, bactericides, gene-edited trees) delivers a scaled cure — uncertain and years away [3][33][36]. Surviving growers may benefit from tight domestic supply and firmer prices, but there is no simple long-term growth thesis, and the most reliable value is increasingly the land, not the fruit.

For the complete analysis — full investable universe, grove economics, demand and regulatory detail, consolidation, and diligence checklist — see the primer for NAICS 111310, Orange Groves.

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Sources

Drawn from the child primer (NAICS 111310); numbering preserved for cross-reference.

1. USDA NASS, Citrus Fruits 2024 Summary (Aug 2025) — national orange acreage, production, value, fresh/processed split. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/cfrt0825.pdf
2. USDA NASS, 2024–2025 Florida Citrus Summary (Preliminary) (Aug 2025). https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Florida/Publications/Citrus/Citrus_Summary/Citrus_Summary_Prelim/cit082925.pdf
3. USDA NASS, Crop Production (April 2026) — 2025–26 orange forecast by state. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/crop0426.pdf
4. USDA Economic Research Service (ERS), Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook (FTS-381, March 2025). https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/outlooks/111231/FTS-381.pdf
5. USDA ERS, Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook (FTS-384, March 2026). https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/20866/fts-384.pdf
6. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Size Standards (2023) — NAICS 111310 = $4.0 million receipts. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
7. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS: 111310 Orange Groves — scope and exclusions. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=111310&year=2022
8. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns Methodology — crop production (NAICS 111) excluded. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
9. USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture. https://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus/
10. Southern Ag Today, "Citrus Greening, Hurricanes, and the Decline of the Florida Citrus Industry" (2024). https://southernagtoday.org/2024/01/05/citrus-greening-hurricanes-and-the-decline-of-the-florida-citrus-industry/
11. Citrus Industry Magazine, "How Florida Orange Production Plummeted 92% in 20 Years" (2024). https://citrusindustry.net/2024/05/07/florida-orange-production-plummeted-years/
12. USDA APHIS, Citrus Greening and Asian Citrus Psyllid — infected trees die; no cure. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant-pests-diseases/citrus-diseases/citrus-greening-and-asian-citrus-psyllid
13. USDA APHIS, APHIS Expands the Citrus Greening (HLB) Quarantined Area in California (2026). https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program-update/aphis-expands-citrus-greening-huanglongbing-quarantined-area-california-7
14. University of Florida IFAS, "Impact of Citrus Greening on Citrus Operations in Florida" (FE983). https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FE983
15. Alico, Inc., Form 10-K, FY2025 — citrus wind-down, gross/net citrus acres, land holdings. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/3545/000000354525000140/alco-20250930.htm
16. Limoneira Company, Form 10-K, FY2025 — orange acreage/revenue, orchard economics. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1342423/000134242325000039/lmnr-20251031.htm
17. Limoneira Company, Citrus Sales & Marketing Merger with Sunkist Growers (8-K exhibit, 2025). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1342423/000110465925057828/tm2517481d1_ex99-1.htm
18. The Wonderful Company, Who We Are — Resnick ownership; largest citrus grower framing. https://www.wonderful.com/who-we-are/
19. Wonderful Citrus, Why Wonderful — ~74,000 acres farmed. https://www.wonderfulcitrus.com/why-wonderful
20. U.S. Sugar, What We Do — Southern Gardens Citrus. https://www.ussugar.com/what-we-do/
21. U.S. Sugar, 2025 Annual Report — citrus acreage and conversion. https://www.ussugarannualreport.com/2025
22. IMG Citrus, Our Story — 11,000+ acres of fresh Florida citrus. https://imgcitrus.com/our-story/
23. Peace River Citrus Products, About Us — ~20M-box processing capacity; 2,500-acre grove. https://www.peacerivercitrus.com/about.html
24. Florida's Natural Growers, About Us — farmer-owned cooperative. https://www.floridasnatural.com/about
25. Florida Citrus (floridacitrus.org), About Us — family-owned grove framing; Florida Department of Citrus. https://www.floridacitrus.org/about/
26. Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), Division of Fruit and Vegetables. https://www.fdacs.gov/divisions-offices/fruit-and-vegetables
27. Florida Statutes §601.40, Registration of Citrus Packinghouses and Processing Plants. https://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0600-0699/0601/Sections/0601.40.html
28. U.S. FDA, FSMA Final Rule on Produce Safety (2016). https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/fsma-final-rule-produce-safety
29. U.S. EPA, Agricultural Worker Protection Standard. https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety/agricultural-worker-protection-standard-wps
30. U.S. Department of Labor, H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/programs/h-2a
31. Citrus Industry Magazine, "FFVA Urges Changes to H-2A Program" (2025) — AEWR wage increases. https://citrusindustry.net/2025/05/22/ffva-urges-changes-h-2a-program/
32. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Florida Citrus Marketing Order. https://www.ams.usda.gov/content/usda-proposed-changes-florida-citrus-marketing-order
33. Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), About. https://citrusrdf.org/about/
34. Bespoke Investment Group, "No More Juice — The Rise and Fall of Orange Juice Futures" (2025). https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/no-more-juice-the-rise-and-fall-of-orange-juice-futures
35. Barchart, "Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice Prices Are Surging" (2024/2025). https://www.barchart.com/story/news/20637910/
36. Fruitnet / Rabobank, "Orange Juice Demand Set to Fall Despite Lower Prices" (2026). https://www.fruitnet.com/fruitnet/orange-juice-demand-set-to-fall-despite-lower-prices/271705.article
37. CNBC, "How Brazil Stole the Production of Orange Juice from Florida" (2018) — Brazil dominance; Cutrale/Citrosuco/Louis Dreyfus; U.S. tariff context. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/brazil-florida-orange-juice-tariff-trade-war.html
38. Food Dive, "Tropicana Orange Supplier Alico to Exit Citrus Business" (2025). https://www.fooddive.com/news/alico-exits-citrus-tropicana-orange-supplier/737017/