Recent research has prompted the Florida Department of Citrus (FDOC) to rethink the way it promotes grapefruit juice. It has been specifically targeting young, urban, professional women, but has recently found out that more men than women drink grapefruit juice. A national telephone survey in the US of 900 adults showed that men drink grapefruit juice more than women and that ethnic minorities are bigger consumers than the white population.
The FDOC is likely therefore to have to rethink its marketing plans for grapefruit as it has for orange juice. The department recently changed its orange-juice strategy away from targeting mothers of young children to a health message targeted specifically to counter low-carbohydrate diets such as Atkins that discourage fruit-juice intake because of its sugar content.
Grapefruit juice sales in the US have plummeted 37 per cent over the past four growing seasons.
