Lime
Our customers use lime because of its sharp acidity, refreshing flavor, and wide functional applications in food and beverages. Lime provides a bright, tangy taste that enhances products like drinks, marinades, sauces, and desserts, often balancing sweetness and adding complexity to flavor profiles. Its high citric acid content also helps act as a natural preservative by lowering pH and slowing microbial growth, which extends shelf life. Additionally, lime is a source of vitamin C, supporting health-related marketing claims. It is commonly processed into juice, concentrate, zest, and essential oil, making it easy to use in large-scale manufacturing while ensuring consistent flavor and product stability.
Lime can be supplied as organic upon request
Botanical: Citrus latifolia
The Tart from the Tropics
Lime is a small, green citrus fruit that grows on thorny evergreen trees in tropical and subtropical regions. Limes are often cultivated for their lime NFC juice or peel oil. It is typically round with a thin skin and juicy interior divided into segments. Limes are believed to have originated in Southeast Asia and have been cultivated for centuries. They have a high acidity and a bright, sharp taste. Lime trees can produce fruit year-round in suitable climates, and the fruit is usually harvested while still green, before fully ripening to a yellow color.
The lime is a essential citrus fruit prized globally across beverage, culinary, confectionery, and flavor industries for its sharp, bracing acidity, vibrant green aesthetic, and refreshing, aromatic terpene profile. Like lemon, industrial evaluation of lime juice centers on its titratable acidity (measured in grams per liter of anhydrous citric acid) and essential peel oil concentration rather than sugar content.
In commercial fruit ingredient processing, two distinct species define the global marketplace:
-
Persian / Tahiti Lime (Citrus latifolia): The primary commercial workhorse. Persian limes are larger, seedless, and yield a clear, light-green juice with a crisp, balanced citric tartness. They produce high-yield single-strength lime NFC juice, 400 GPL concentrates, and vibrant cold-pressed peel lime oils used broadly across RTD beverages, hard seltzers, and food manufacturing.
-
Key Lime / Mexican Lime (Citrus aurantiifolia): Smaller, seeded, and highly aromatic. Key limes possess higher natural titratable acidity, lower pH, and a distinct floral, herbal, and complex bittersweet aromatic profile. Key lime NFC juice, key lime concentrate, and specialized oils are highly prized for artisanal beverage bases, craft spirits, authentic Key lime pies, and gourmet sauces.
Brothers International partners with origin processors who utilize specialized inline citrus extractors and juice finishers. This technology cleanly isolates the acid-rich juice sacs while capturing pure essential oils from the outer flavedo peel without crushing inner seed coats or extracting bitter albedo tannins.
Global Sourcing Through the Brothers International Network:
Lime trees require warm, frost-free tropical or subtropical microclimates with abundant sunlight, consistent rainfall, and well-drained soils. Because fresh lime markets experience intense price swings and processing yields can be impacted by weather anomalies, tropical storms, and regional citrus diseases (such as citrus greening / HLB and citrus canker), securing a year-round industrial volume requires an integrated international network. Brothers International connects North American procurement teams to premier global growing belts.
We source high-grade lime ingredients from leading global origins:
-
North & Central America (Mexico): Mexico (specifically Veracruz, Michoacán, Tamaulipas, and Colima) is the undisputed epicenter of world processing for both Persian and Key limes. Mexican processors offer year-round processing capacity, state-of-the-art oil distillation, and short shipping lanes to North American ports.
-
South America (Brazil, Peru & Colombia): Brazil is a massive processing power for high-clarity 400 GPL lime juice concentrates and cold-pressed lime oils, providing strategic volume depth and competitive global pricing.
-
Europe & Asia: Secondary agricultural hubs providing specialized organic-certified lime NFC juices and niche distilled lime oil grades.
By coordinating supply across Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, Brothers International insulates your manufacturing facility against localized crop shortfalls, shipping disruptions, and raw material price spikes.
Harvest Cycles & Continuous Supply Management:
In tropical growing regions like Mexico and Brazil, lime trees flower and produce fruit continuously throughout the year, enabling 52-week rolling processing operations. Harvest surges typically peak from May through October, aligning with peak summer beverage manufacturing demand.
Managing this continuous processing schedule and coordinating cold-chain maritime and overland logistics is a core strength of Brothers International. Our operations and logistics teams oversee multi-quarter inventory allocations, temperature-monitored transport, USDA/FDA import clearances, C-TPAT supply chain security, and strategic cold-storage warehousing across North America. Whether your line requires bulk liquid tankers of single-strength Persian NFC juice, chilled totes of 400 GPL clarified concentrate, or steel drums of cold-pressed Key lime oil, our network guarantees ready inventory year-round.
Rigorous Quality Control, Traceability & Compliance:
Processing high-potency lime ingredients demands strict technical oversight regarding grams per liter (GPL) of anhydrous citric acid, pulp wash limits, essential oil percentage, and microbiological safety. Every supplier within the Brothers International network undergoes a comprehensive auditing process to guarantee complete supply chain traceability, sustainable water management, fair labor standards, and strict compliance with USDA, FDA, and international food safety standards.
Through our network, we deliver lime ingredients backed by complete technical documentation and top-tier industry certifications, including GFSI benchmarks (BRC, SQF, FSSC 22000), USDA Organic (NOP), Kosher, Non-GMO, and Halal standards. Our quality assurance protocols include testing for pesticide residues, heavy metals, microbial safety, titratable acidity (GPL), aldehyde and terpene profiles (in essential oil), and Brix adherence under FDA 21 CFR § 101.30.
The Brothers International
Quality Promise
Brothers International and its 4 divisions, Brothers Ingredients, Dennick Fruit Source, Hosh International and Food Partners, are trusted global importers of premium ingredients to major food and beverage manufacturers in North America. We deliver consistent quality and supply across every format the industry demands. Our Lime is sourced from the earth’s prime growing regions where farming expertise, climate and soil composition come together to produce Lime of exceptional caliber. All of our suppliers undergo a rigorous vetting process to ensure we work with only the highest-quality processors and can fully guarantee traceability, sustainability, and compliance with all international regulations.
Each of our divisions has a specialized operations team to manage shipments and coordinate with customers and suppliers. They work closely with our in-house customs team to ensure efficient clearance, and collaborate with the USDA and FDA to maintain full regulatory compliance. This ensures your ingredients move seamlessly through every stage of import, arriving on time and ready for production with complete confidence. With decades of sourcing expertise and a strong commitment to customer success, you can count on Brothers International to deliver the premium ingredients your products require.
Industry Glossary
A Reference Guide for Fruit Ingredient Terminology
Check out our glossary for a consolidated reference of commonly used terminology across the global fruit ingredient industry. It provides straightforward definitions and context for the language and concepts referenced throughout the industry.
