Cranberry king thankful for new facility

Ocean Spray, the world's largest cranberry cooperative, has opened a new $26 million state-of-the-art cranberry receiving station facility in Richmond, British Columbia.

British Columbia is a major cranberry-growing region and Ocean Spray’s new facility in Richmond greatly expands the $2.1 billion cooperative’s processing capabilities. Located about four miles from the former Richmond receiving station, the new site offers more convenient accessibility for local growers and more space and capacity for operations. Providing a 50% increase to Richmond's current receiving capacity, the total daily capacity of the new facility will be in excess of three million pounds, with annual capacity approaching 100 million pounds. Additionally, growers should see decreased wait times when delivering their crops to the receiving station.

The new facility also includes equipment to sort and screen cranberries, as well as the means to bin all outbound fruit. Further, the new station's expanded capacity and improved capability ensures that British Columbia remains positioned to meet all fruit receiving and cleaning requirements. Ocean Spray will utilize the cranberries processed at its Richmond facility for products such as Craisins Dried Cranberries and juice concentrate. The facility is Ocean Spray's first new receiving station in 15 years.

"As Ocean Spray continues to expand business across the globe, the Richmond community has been an important partner," said Peter Dhillon, Ocean Spray's Vice Chairman of the Board and Richmond-area cranberry grower. "Almost 20 percent of Ocean Spray's total acreage in North America is in British Columbia, and so the new state-of-the-art receiving station will help us maximize the efficiency of handling our crop."

Ocean Spray is an agricultural cooperative owned by more than 700 cranberry growers in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and other parts of Canada as well as 35 Florida grapefruit growers. Founded more than 80 years ago, Ocean Spray is North America's leading producer of bottled juices and juice drinks, and has been the best-selling brand name in the bottled juice category since 1981.