Tropicana Products is an American based company, and was founded in 1947 by Anthony T. Rossi in Bradenton, Florida, U.S.A. Since 1998, it has been owned by PepsiCo, Inc. Tropicana's headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois.
Anthony T. Rossi (1900–1993) was born in Italy on the island of Sicily. He had the equivalent of a high school education, and emigrated to the United States when he was 21 years old. He drove a taxicab, was a grocer in New York, farmed in Virginia and then moved to Florida in 1940 where he farmed and was a restaurateur. His first involvement with the Florida citrus industry was fresh fruit gift boxes sold by Macy's and Gimbel's department stores in New York City, New York.
In 1947, Rossi settled in Palmetto, Florida and began packing fruit gift boxes and jars of sectioned fruit for salads under the name Manatee River Packing Company. As the fruit segment business grew, the company moved to a larger location in east Bradenton, Florida and changed its name to Fruit Industries. The ingredients for the fresh fruit salads on the menu of New York’s famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel were supplied by Fruit Industries. At the east Bradenton location, Rossi began producing frozen concentrate orange juice as a natural extension of the fruit section business.
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