one weekly round-trip from Florida to Kearny, New Jersey. By the following year, the company was operating two 60-car unit trains a week, each carrying around of juice. In 1978, Rossi retired and sold Tropicana to Beatrice Foods. Tropicana has been through a number of corporate changes and since 1998, it has operated as a division of PepsiCo. Christianity Rossi grew up with a Catholic background but outside church he was a troublemaker. He had experienced an earthquake in his home town of Messina, Italy and it spurred him to seek information about God, Judgment Day and Heaven. After some time in America and experience with business, Rossi sold his large grocery store in preparation to move to the south to take up farming, around which time he began reading the Bible. He and his first wife (Florence) joined the First Methodist Church in Florida in 1941. He and his wife joined Calvary Baptist in Bradenton Florida in 1965. He traveled back home to Italy annually from 1952, and in 1966 he helped to fund a church and mission there. Rossi established the Aurora Foundation in the 1960s, which has funded Christian educational institutions, missions, and other charities. Legacy Rossi was inducted into the Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1987. In addition to his work with product development at Tropicana, his efforts to introduce citrus products into school food programs have also been lauded. References Further reading Sanna Barlow Rossi, 1986. Anthony T. Rossi, Christian and Entrepreneur: The Story of the Founder of Tropicana (InterVarsity Press). () McPhee, John, 1967. Oranges. External links Florida Hall of Fame https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36439681 1900 births 1993 deaths People from Messina Italian emigrants to the United States Tropicana Products PepsiCo people 20th-century American businesspeople American Christians American evangelicals People from Bradenton, Florida