Ocean Spray

Each Autumn, starting in mid-September and continuing until Thanksgiving in November, our growers harvest millions of pounds of cranberries from their farms in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and parts of British Columbia and Quebec.

A perennial plant, cranberries grow on long-running vines in sandy bogs and marshes. The first cranberries were painstakingly picked by hand. Some time later, growers used wooden scoops, resembling a large comb, to lift berries off their vines. Today's growers employ two methods for harvesting cranberries: wet and dry harvesting.

Dry harvest

To dry harvest cranberries for the fresh fruit market, growers use a mechanical picker that resembles a large lawnmower. The picker's moving metal teeth comb the berries off the vine and deposit them in a burlap sack at the back of the machine. Helicopters often transport the sacks of harvested cranberries to protect the vines from heavy trucks.

Wet harvest

Contrary to popular belief, cranberries do not grow under water.
However, water plays an important role in the other way they're harvested.

Wet harvesting actually begins the night before. A grower floods the dry bog with up to 45cm of water. The next day, water reels or 'egg beaters' loosen the berries from the vines. Since cranberries contain pockets of air, freed berries float to the surface of the water. The deep red of the floating cranberries, framed against the backdrop of the surrounding Autumn foliage and bright blue sky, makes for a stunning scene. The berries are then corralled in giant booms by wader-clad growers and sent by truck to a central receiving station for sorting and inspection. Cranberries harvested using the wet method are destined for our variety of food and juice products.

'Peg Leg' Webb and the bouncing berry

Ocean Spray judges cranberries by colour, size and freshness... and oddly enough, by their ability to bounce! An early New Jersey grower, John 'Peg Leg' Webb, first noted this special property of the cranberry. Because of his wooden leg, he could not carry his berries down from the loft of his barn where he stored them.

Instead, he would pour them down the steps. He soon noticed that only the firmest and freshest berries bounced down to the bottom; the soft and bruised fruit did not bounce and remained on the steps. His observation led to the development of the first cranberry bounceboard or Bayley separator, a method Ocean Spray still uses today to remove damaged or sub-standard berries.