Orange juice, is of course, the most important thing to come out of the orange. But, because of the efficient design of the Southern Gardens Citrus processing plant, virtually every part of the orange, from pulp to peel, representing approximately 50 percent of the orange, is recovered and processed into a marketable product. These byproducts, all of which are used in food processing, agriculture, electronics and other commercial applications, include:

Cold-pressed oils
This is the oil removed from the peel during the juice extraction process. The major use of this product is for flavoring juices, beverages and other foods and confections.

Essences and aromas
These are recovered during the evaporation process when the juice is heated under a vacuum to remove the water. These are used primarily to flavor citrus juice and beverage products.

Press liquor
After the orange has been processed the remaining peel, seeds and membrane are processed through a screw press that forces out much of the remaining liquid - press liquor. It in turn is used to make citrus molasses.

Citrus molasses
The product resulting from the evaporation of the press liquor, it is either sold to local distillers to make alcohol or mixed with peel pulp to produce cattle feed.

D'limonene
Recovered from the orange peel from conversion of the press liquor to molasses, d'limonene is used for making everything from adhesives to a solvent used by the electronics industry as a replacement for ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons.

Dried peel
With 90 percent of the moisture removed from the peel by pressing and heating, the peel is pressed into pellets that is used for cattle feed.