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October 6, 2002
ORLANDO -- Orange juice giant Minute Maid Co. will return to Florida when it opens a citrus plant in Auburndale next year, more than a decade after leaving the state.
The $120-million plant is scheduled to open in March under the management of Orlando executive Darin Rice, company officials said Friday. Construction has already started.
The Polk County plant will initially employ 120 people, with 300 workers expected by 2006, to manufacture a brand of pasteurized juice called Simply Orange, which will be sold nationwide.
The plant will have 620,000 square feet of operations on 60 acres. Auburndale is about 40 miles east of Tampa.
Minute Maid started in Plymouth in the 1940s and was headquartered in Orlando.
It was the leading citrus juice company in the world in the 1950s and 1960s.
Minute Maid owned five juice plants in Florida but left in the 1980s after spells of cold weather killed citrus crops. The company sold its 16,000 acres of groves and all its plants.