Frozen orange juice is actually super weird

It's FCOJ's world. We just live in it.

Frozen orange juice is a strange, incredibly creative solution to a bunch of different problems. What does it do, and how did it change the 20th century?

Here's the video.

How this video happened

I stumbled on this topic when I was researching "Why the Soviet Union was obsessed with corn." Though the whole government invention element was a bit sparse on documentation, I grew fascinated by the unique transformation of fruit to "liquid gold" and the subsequent logic of a futures market based around FCOJ.

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Here's a link to the commentary video (for some paid tiers).

How Trading Places changed trading

It wasn't until starting this video that I realized how influential Trading Places was when it comes to comedy (is this the point where I tell you that some elements haven't exactly aged super well so you don't read my silence as an endorsement?). But even as I became aware of how many people identified FCOJ with the movie, I was still surprised to find out it was the basis for a rule.

Included as part of the Dodd-Frank Act financial reforms, the "Eddie Murphy Rule" sought to penalize use of any Federal Source (like the Dept. of Ag data in the movie) "in their personal capacity and for personal gain with intent to assist and other person, directly or indirectly." Somewhat humorously, instead of targeting the Dukes, this law was targeting Murphy's and Aykroyd's characters' use of that special report to give them a leg up.

As this white paper explains, the rule expanded the supervising regulatory agency's domain (the CFTC, or Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in this case) to have additional enforcement powers. And in 2023, they even used the Eddie Murphy rule to bring a case against an oil trader (I found the case here, and you can read the CFTC's report here). One coincidental but perfectly delightful specific detail is that the bribes had the code word "breakfast." So FCOJ gets partial credit, if you ask me.

The Eddie Murphy rule is not without its detractors. Trabue Bland told me that some people had found the rule controversial at first because it kept information out of the market, and even secret info could help market prices become more accurate. But regardless, it's Eddie Murphy's rule now. We just live with it.

Sources

• I actually found the ICE Futures product guide to be pretty useful for understanding FCOJ. It captures why people would buy the future, what effects it may have had on prices, and the relationship to Brazil et al. Trabue also mentioned a bunch of their other interesting commodities during our interview — though FCOJ lives in warehouses, they actually grade the coffee in their office. And if you are a mega-nerd, here's the list of licensed FCOJ tanks that I used to make my map.

• Shane Hamilton has a pretty fascinating portfolio of work — I think I ran into one of his books for another video, so I was psyched to chat with him for this one. Here's a link to his article about FCOJ, which largely covers some of the weird dynamics I mention in the video, but also has a general history.

• Squeezed by Alissa Hamilton (no relation to Shane) is a comprehensive history of Orange Juice, going from the beginning to the Tropicana era. She spent months holed up in Florida orange archives. I tried to get in touch with her for this video, but couldn't find a digital footprint. I think I would have asked her if she was mad that Jose Canseco took the best title for her book.

• I know this is, like, 2 seconds in the video, but how amazing is it that I found someone had scanned a Donald Duck Orange Juice can and made it Creative Commons. I was trying to make far inferior sources work.

• There's some good popular writing about OJ and FCOJ. But I think the nicest intro for me, researching the topic, was this article. It gave me a lot of jumping off points and got me to Florida Memory.

• I found my annual reports of the Florida Citrus Commission here. Even now, I'm still a little shocked how open they were about rooting for freezes.

• This one had a few more research dead ends than usual, simply because I just couldn't justify some trips into the weeds. However, you have to love the extensive documentation, like this history of FCOJ promo — for the fonts, if nothing else.