MAITLAND, Fla. – At Hollieanna Groves in Maitland, the citrus fruit is rolling.
Crate after crate of navel oranges, red grapefruit and tangerines are dumped and rolled into a washing area, and then rolled to an area to be sorted. Some will be juiced. Some will be placed in bags, boxes or baskets to be shipped around the country in time for Christmas — just like they did in the 1950s when Alinda, Kurt and Jason Lingles’ parents bought the business, with its groves, mail-order operation and store.
After nearly 70 years in business, change will be inescapable, but the Lingles say they do their best to keep the Hollieanna Groves experience the same for their customers, some of whom have been with them for decades. In a Maitland corridor burgeoning with new growth, the tiny Hollieanna Groves store feels like Old Florida’s last stand in this part of Orange County.
“It’s hard to quit on an industry that has served our family so well for so long,” Jason Lingle said.
Glenn Lingle bought Hollieanna Groves from Hollie and Anna Oakley in 1954, and from the beginning it was run as a family-operation. Wife Jane and all the kids worked, especially during the season.
“We used to be able to get out of school for two weeks when we were in elementary school because we had to come down here and work because no one was there to take care of us in the evenings. So our family has always been so busy, especially during this time,” said Alinda Lingle, the youngest of the children, who now run the business.
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“We remember that the people that worked here looked out for us. It was fun and entertaining, and we were helping and enjoying it,” Jason said.
“And we got to go to Bonanza across the street and have dinner,” Alinda added. “That was like a huge deal when we were little.”
As we sit in Alinda’s wood-paneled office, signs of the past abound. Old fruit crates sit on shelves. The ends of some crates now hang on the walls as pieces of art and agricultural history.
Alinda pulls out an old postcard of the Hollieanna Groves store, with the bright colors and dull resolution one expects of old photographs. A large white sign on the building pronounces the “Hollieanna Groves Sales Room” in blue and orange cursive. The fronds of palm trees can be seen on the right edge, proof that the storefront was once set further from the road, before U.S. 17-92 was widened.
“From here, all the way to where Fort Maitland Park is, that was nothing but orange groves,” Alinda said.
Another sign of the changing times — on easels around the outside of the store, bags of fruit are displayed with prices as low as 50 cents.
Alinda said a bushel of oranges cost $32.95 in 1986, with shipping. The equivalent today is $89.95, plus shipping.
However, Alinda said it is also five times harder to fill a bushel of fruit now than it was 30 years ago.
The Lingles originally had groves in Sanford and Geneva, and would also harvest fruit from other local growers. The freezes in the 1980s took out the grove in Sanford, so Glenn Lingle planted another grove in Fort Pierce in 1985. But citrus canker and citrus greening, as well as the age of the trees, has reduced the grove’s productivity.
Today, the Lingles get their fruit from several places – a small grove owned by brother Kurt in Seminole County, as well as small groves owned by other growers in Volusia and Lake counties. Having to go through so many different groves is just one of the factors adding to the growing cost of the fruit for consumers. There are fewer groves to buy from, too, as more growers sell, often to developers.
“You’re putting all this money into trying to keep a grove alive,” Alinda said. “You’re not really changing the product. It’s not improved, it’s not a new iPhone, it’s the same thing. It’s an orange, and people don’t understand why the price keeps getting higher and higher and higher, because caretaking costs used to be nothing, and now they run in the hundreds of dollars.”
Once they decide where the fruit will come from, they’ll go to the groves, pick the fruit from the trees and transport them to Hollieanna in wooden citrus crates made of dried cypress. Hollieanna Groves is one of the few citrus businesses in Florida that still uses those old crates.
The field boxes, Jason said, do a better job of keeping the fruit from getting bruised, and there’s less pressure on the fruit. They were standard in the industry until the late 1960s when companies started switching to larger bins.
“We know we’re making less money doing it this way, you know, preserving the heritage,” Jason said.
The oranges, grapefruits and tangerines at Hollieanna Groves come in a dozen varieties, depending on seasonality and what trees are producing good fruit each year. Some of these varieties can only be found in Florida, an important component in keeping the citrus shipping business going in a time when people across the U.S. can go to the local supermarket and find all kinds of fruit on the shelves.
The sugar belle, for instance, is a cross between a honeybell orange and a clementine that is only available in December. The fruit is relatively new – released by University of Florida citrus researchers in 2006. It was designed to be resistant to citrus diseases. It’s also easy to peel, has few seeds and is very sweet and juicy. But the newness means you really won’t find it outside of Florida.
And while you can get decent quality oranges at a store in another state, the Lingles say you won’t get them fresher. When someone orders from Hollieanna Groves, Alinda said the fruit that person will get is still on the tree when they order it.
“We can only harvest so much at a time because of the shelf-life. But we always try to get it off the tree, in a box and into somebody’s house within a week’s time. That’s the goal. And then it’s never cold-stored either,” Alinda said.
Customers new and old are still getting citrus fruit shipped through Hollieanna Groves – thousands of orders in a season. Alinda estimates about 65% of Hollieanna’s sales come from the mail-order side of the business. There are some corporate accounts, but mostly their customers are individuals who still send citrus as gifts and also order for themselves.
Alinda said one customer recently asked to order an item that was in a catalog they had from 1986 or 1987.
“It’s a holiday tradition for a lot of people,” Alinda said. “Some of the customers that we have, they’ve been with us for 50 years. And they order every year and that’s part of the holiday tradition is to have citrus at the table, whether it’s Hanukkah or Christmas or whatever they’re celebrating.”
Heading into 2024, the Lingles are getting ready for honeybell season starting in January, and also trying to decide how to celebrate Hollieanna Groves’ 70 years in operation. There’s a sense of exhaustion among the Lingle siblings. They are keeping their family business, and a piece of Old Florida, alive but they know they can’t do it forever.
“Emotional attachment, knowing that the family farm may be a parking lot or something someday,” Jason said. “That’s hard to hear when you’re a farmer type and a native Floridian in this industry that used to be bigger than Mickey Mouse.”
Still, they are putting up a good fight. The Lingles say there used to be several citrus stands on this stretch of U.S. 17-92. Only Hollieanna Groves is still standing, and the citrus is still rolling.
Hollieanna Groves is open November to April, depending on fruit availability and inventory. The store on U.S. 17-92 sells fresh fruit and juice, along with a selection of local honey, citrus candies and other Florida-based sweets, marmalades, jellies and dressings and other food and gifts.
The store is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
To find out how to order fruit for shipping, head to the Hollieanna Groves website.
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