# Oranges & juice: Stocks

When the real stock is a living orchard

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/stocks/

What this tab covers How much is left and how much is held. For minerals and energy: reserves, current output, years of supply and recycling for the top five countries. For farm commodities: production, ending stocks and stocks-to-use for the top five producers (USDA, October 2026). It also covers inventories and stockpiles.

#### Top five producers: production and stocks (USDA, 2025/26)

| Country | Production | Share | Ending stocks | Stocks-to-use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Brazil** | 1,032,000 | 76.4% | 6,000 | 0.6% |
| **Mexico** | 85,000 | 6.3% | 2,000 | 2.3% |
| **United States** | 72,000 | 5.3% | 141,000 | 30.3% |
| **European Union** | 58,140 | 4.3% | 15,000 | 3.6% |
| **South Africa** | 36,700 | 2.7% | 42,160 | 110.7% |
| **World** | 1,351,000 | 100% | 249,500 | 21.4% |

 t. Stocks-to-use = ending stocks ÷ (domestic use + exports) for countries, ÷ world use for the world. Source: USDA FAS PSD database, October 2026 release.

#### Stockholding and policy

Oranges cannot be stored for long, so the buffer is juice. World orange juice ending stocks were about 250 kt in 2025/26, 141 kt of them in the US (USDA PSD), roughly 21% of annual consumption. Brazilian processors' juice inventories, published by CitrusBR, are a key price signal. India has no buffer stock policy for oranges.

There are no reserves in the mining sense. The living stock is the orchard, which takes years to rebuild once disease or freezes kill trees. Fresh oranges keep for weeks in cold storage, but juice can be held for a year or more as frozen concentrate or in chilled aseptic tanks. Inventories steer prices. Geman's USDA table shows Brazilian FCOJ stocks falling from 346 thousand tonnes at the start of 2000 to 92 thousand at the end of 2003. Thin juice stocks amplify any crop shortfall.

## Other sections

- [Summary](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/index.md)
- [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/overview/index.md)
- [Correlation](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/correlation/index.md)
- [Extraction](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/extraction/index.md)
- [Production](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/production/index.md)
- [Cycles](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/cycles/index.md)
- [Trading](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/trading/index.md)
- [Movement](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/movement/index.md)
- [Criticality](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/criticality/index.md)
- [Characteristics](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/characteristics/index.md)
- [Emissions](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/emissions/index.md)
- [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/orange/links/index.md)