Fruit sweetened dried cranberry launch at IFT

Speaking to FoodNavigatorUSA.com at the IFT event, Marion Burton, the company's marketing manager Ingredients Technology Group, said the new product delivered extra flexibility without the addition of sugar.

Processing advantages​

"The new sweetened dried cranberry (SDC) offers the same processing advantages as Ocean Spray's flagship soft and moist SDC, while removing the need to call out sugar as an ingredient,"​ she said.

Although the new product is sweet it also has some tartness making it a flexible ingredient for a range of food and snack uses.

"SDC bring attractive points of colour, great taste and a healthy profile to finished products such as cereals, trail mix (combining cranberries chocolate, fruit nuts and other ingredients) and baked goods,"​ said Burton.

The new dried cranberries are said to be highly process tolerant and easy to incorporate into production processes.

Made from superior grade cranberries, the fruit sweetened dried cranberries are dried to a specific moisture specification, depending on the characteristics of the require product specification.

Cranberry production​

Meanwhile, cranberry production fell 10 percent last year, according to estimates derived from tthe annual August survey conducted by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) part of the United States Agricultural Department (USDA).

Despite the lower harvest the crop, estimated at 7.09 million barrels, is expected to be the second largest production on record.

Production estimates were down in Massachusetts and Wisconsin but up for New Jersey, Oregan and Washington.

The results of this year's production survey of Massachusetts cranberry will be published by NASS on August 17. A copy of the report will be available at www.nass.usda.gov.​