Who Killed the Florida Orange? Highlight

But it wasn’t greening that had caused this collapse. The decline had taken off in the 1990s, when the industry opened itself up to Wall Street and to foreign capital. According to the Florida Department of Citrus, in 1996, foreign buyers bought two plants in Auburndale, which kicked off a trend: From then on, the “majority of plant acquisitions that followed would have owners headquartered outside of the United States.” In 1998, privately owned Seagram’s sold Tropicana to publicly traded Wall Street darling PepsiCo, and things quickly began to change.