Juice machine: citrus company posts solid year

One of the largest citrus producers in the country, Fort Myers-based Alico, is delivering some good news for the holiday Season: The Florida orange isn’t dead yet.

Although the sunshine state’s No. 1 fruit has had a rough go for a few years, squeezed by storms and citrus greening, Alico’s fourth quarter and year-end report shows there could be a turn coming. For one, Alico Citrus, the company’s fruit division, harvested 8.1 million boxes of fruit for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 — up 68.1% from the prior fiscal year. The company also posted a slight overall increase in pound solids per box, which was 5.91 for fiscal 2019, up from 5.64 from fiscal 2018.