Dive Brief:
- The cranberry bogs of North America have come to fruition, and the annual harvest has begun.
- Grower co-op Ocean Spray expects the global crop this year to be between 11.1 million and 11.5 million 100-pound barrels, roughly equal to the 11.2 million barrels grown last year.
- Cranberries are about as American as a food can be. Roughly 80 percent of the crop will be consumed in North America. Folks in the U.S. eat about 400 million pounds of the stuff each year, and about 20 percent of that is consumed around the Thanksgiving holiday.
Dive Insight:
About the only thing prettier than a cranberry bog (they really are stunning, seen from the right angle they look like a bright red sea) is a plate covered with the traditional Thanksgiving meal. And Thanksgiving without cranberries is hardly anything for which to give thanks. We look for information on the crop every year at about this time. And always sigh with relief when things look good (when things look bad, we start hoarding cans of jellied cranberry sauce.) So we're thrilled with this year's crop forecast ...particularly since things don't look so good for the sweet potato section of that Thanksgiving plate.
