Video Transcript
Cranberry sauce is a Thanksgiving dinner staple, whether it’s poured over roasted turkey or served alongside creamy mashed potatoes. That’s why tens of millions of the canned side dish are sold yearly, and more than 1,000 U.S. farmers grow the tart fruit. But have you ever wondered about the behind-the-scenes manufacturing process of cranberry sauce? We explored the operation from vine to can.
To find the perfect fruit for fall picking, you need the right climate for a summer growing season, which weather experts say for cranberries means warm but not-too-hot weather and the occasional rain event. The U.S. and Canada are far and away the top producers of this tart delight, mainly in places like Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and the Pacific Northwest.
In late September, cranberries, which grow in an ecosystem of water and sand called a bog, are harvested in a unique method called a “wet harvest,” a process of flooding the fields to help detach the berries from their horizontal vines at the bog’s floor and bring them to the surface.
Water reels called “beaters” do the job of dislodging the rest, at which point farmers corral the fruit with large spoons or brooms, consolidating the precious fruit before a pump truck or a conveyor belt helps ferry them to a vehicle for rinsing.
Next, the cranberries make their way to the factory, where they bounce along a conveyor belt to be thoroughly cleaned with water jets. Automated equipment has been designed to sort, identify, and remove bad berries, at which point they are crated and frozen.
Large manufacturers like Ocean Spray use automated spikes to break up the frozen block for further processing, and the berries are grated and visually inspected for substandard pieces. Next, they are ground into a puree after passing through a screen before they are sweetened and pasteurized.
Now it’s time for that critical can: a ridged aluminum package that’s filled with hot liquid cranberry sauce, which is then steamed and sealed. After a water bath cools the cans, they are affixed with their labels, packed, and shipped. According to Ocean Spray, their canned cranberry jelly spends just 24-48 hours in the warehouse before being shipped to retailers, where it sits on grocery shelves just waiting to wobble.
Whether you love or hate cranberry sauce, it’s a product Thanksgiving celebrators can count on every year — and one of the easiest to prepare!
