The hum of the berry pumps breaks the silence in a picturesque wooded area in rural Massachusetts, where Steve Ward and his team prepare to harvest a two-acre cranberry bog – a task expected to take about an hour.
His father, Dick Ward, who got into the cranberry business five decades ago with a bog not much bigger than the one Steve Ward and his crew are working, was out the night before topping off the bog with a little more water.
That bit of extra flooding is just enough to ease the process of corralling the entire waterborne crop, which, when pulled together in one spot, radiates a brilliant, otherworldly red in the morning sun.
Cranberry bog economics
During the morning harvest, Steve Ward, owner of Carver, Mass.-based Steven F. Ward Cranberries, serves in a dual role: as a farmer and as an ambassador for Ocean Spray, the 95-year-old farmer-owned cooperative with 1,000-plus products sold in more than 100 countries.
“As you can see, I talked to Mother Nature last night and said, ‘Mother Nature, we would really like you to blow the berries right over into this corner,’ and she did that,” Ward said with a wink in his thick Eastern New England accent.
As a member of the roughly 700 independent farmers in the Ocean Spray cooperative – located in the US, Canada and Chile – Ward’s 100-acre operation is but a fraction of the global farming powerhouse that fuels about 70% of the world’s cranberry production, according to the trade association Massachusetts Cranberries.
US growers harvest about 40,000 acres and 800 million pounds of cranberries each year, according to the trade group. The state’s Cranberry Bog Program estimates that roughly 13,250 acres are in Massachusetts, with each farm typically about two to five acres.
That means about a fifth to a quarter of the entire US crop each year comes out of the state where the US cranberry industry was conceived. The USDA National Agricultural Statistic Service (NASS) estimated a 1.75 million-barrel crop for Massachusetts in 2025, which accounts for 21.5% of the year’s US cranberry crop of 8.13 million 100-pound barrels.
Ocean Spray is among the largest cooperatives in the nation, reporting $2 billion in revenue and $1.6 billion in assets in 2024, which earned it the No. 32 spot in National Cooperative Bank’s 2024 NCB Co-op 100 list, which ranks US cooperatives by revenue.
Much of that revenue comes from international sales, where Ocean Spray maintains a strong foothold, making up the bulk of the $351 million in cranberry exports reported by the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service for fiscal year 2024.
“Top markets for US cranberries are the European Union, Mexico, Canada and China,” the USDA noted. “US cranberry producers, especially in Wisconsin and Massachusetts, continue to see growth potential in export markets.”
Evolution of the cranberry
The Ward family launched their cranberry farm in 1975 – a time of big changes in the industry. The method of wet harvesting, or flooding farmland in bogs, had only been in use for about 15 years.
Prior to 1960, cranberries – one of only three cultivated fruits native to North America – were collected with labor-intensive hand-held scoops.
“We had a couple of pretty smart people realize that cranberries have four air chambers in them and they float. So why isn’t there an option to knock the berries off, float them over to the edge of the bog and then load them onto a truck from there?” Ward explained.
Once the bog is flooded, farmers use a large hose to vacuum the cranberries into a truck that carts them off to a nearby Ocean Spray receiving facility, where it sorts out leaves, rocks and other debris.
Ward likes the old-fashioned harvesting method for family days and community events, but he acknowledged the wet harvests are more efficient. “If you asked me to harvest 100 acres, I’m going to go with the water picking, because it’s an awful lot more per day,” he said.
The innovation continues today in the evolving industry with new products, some of which come directly on the vine.
For the last four decades, Rutgers University’s Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research, has cross-bred hundreds of varieties in search of those that produce the highest yields, have the strongest anthocyanin content (red pigment), bear the largest fruit and are most resistant to disease and insects.
Rutgers released seven of these varieties commercially under the names Crimson Queen, Demoranville, Mullica Queen, Scarlet Knight, Welker, Vasanna and Haines.
Ward said his cranberry bog was planted in 1877 and still has many of the original vines. There were about four varieties when he was growing up; today, due to research institutions like Rutgers, there are about 20, he said.
Cranberries a family tradition
The Ward family’s operation manages the land with Beaton’s Inc., a long-time family in the Massachusetts cranberry business, and their agricultural services business, Sure-Cran Services.
During harvest season, which runs from mid-September to early November, Beaton harvests some 850 acres of cranberry fields, Ward said. A typical cranberry bog will fill a big rig truck that holds 50,000 to 60,000 pounds.
“When we start picking, we’ve got 850 acres to pick, so we go seven days a week,” he said. “And when we finish, a lot of times, we’ll get a phone call and somebody else is behind, and we’ll go off and help them get their harvest done.”
The aspect of the industry Ward said he appreciates most is the community of growers.
“We just all have each other’s backs, and I like that,” he said.
His son, Justin Ward, is carrying on the family tradition by purchasing his own bog last spring through a USDA program for young farmers, Ward said proudly at the beginning of the tour.
“It’s very exciting to have that third generation coming along,” Steve Ward said.
The family roots in the industry run as deep as the plants they cultivate, but it’s more than just tradition that propels the industry. Ocean Spray operates a vast network of B2B partnerships and co-branded products that saturate the $3.2 billion global cranberry market with the Ocean Spray brand.
B2B push with Ocean Spray Ingredients
Back at Ocean Spray headquarters in Lakeville, Mass., the cooperative highlights its vast portfolio of products and its growing international reach.
Ocean Spray is best known for its line of cranberry juices and its jellied cranberry sauce that most often appears on holiday dinner tables. Consumers are also well-acquainted with Ocean Spray’s trademarked sugar-infused, dried cranberries known as Craisins.
But behind the scenes, the cooperative runs Ocean Spray Ingredients, which develops custom products for B2B customers using its dried cranberries, seeds, frozen fruits, purées and concentrates.
Ocean Spray’s culinary and product development teams consult with customers in CPG and foodservice to provide insight on how best they can incorporate cranberries in their products, according to Curtis Gong, senior scientist for ingredient applications and development at Ocean Spray.
“We can suggest which are the best options in our portfolio for their application needs,” he said.
Much of the research and development on new products takes place at Ocean Spray’s pilot plant production facility, which is part of its large-scale product plant in Middleborough, Mass., Gong said.
Ocean Spray also is expanding its reach through partnerships with private-label retailers, according to Adena Barber, growth and customer marketing manager at Ocean Spray Ingredients. Despite the integration of Ocean Spray cranberries, those products often give no indication that they are connected to the co-op.
For example, CVS Pharmacy’s private-label Well Market Apple Crisp Trail Mix, which includes yogurt-covered cranberries, features no Ocean Spray logo or branding.
“In collaboration with the culinary team, we rolled out a whole snack-time campaign with our cranberries,” Barber said.
She also highlighted the co-op’s international presence in Europe and countries like Taiwan, Korea, India and China.
The division also works to build partnerships with top name brands to develop products like Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Dipped Cranberry Bites, Absolute Vodka and Ocean Spray Cranberry sparkling water and Ocean Spray powdered drink mixes with Dyla Brands.
Ocean Spray conducted its first brand overhaul in two decades in early 2024, emphasizing the bold flavor and “wildly uncommon” nature of the tart treats.
“Through every touchpoint, we are focused on unleashing and fully leveraging the equity and strength of the Ocean Spray brand in a way that shepherds us into the next generation while remaining true to our legacy,” said Eliza Sadler, head of brand elevation at Ocean Spray.
