Growers: Cranberries more than turkey sidekick

PORTLAND – November is the month for cranberries, but mainly as a tag along to the turkey on Thanksgiving.

Maine’s cranberry growers, battered by a nationwide cranberry glut and rock bottom prices, would like to change the image of the turkey sidekick.

Anyone for cranberry muffins? Cranberry chutney? Even cranberry vinegar?

“The key to success right there is getting Maine customers to realize the different uses for cranberries and to seek them out,” said Charles Armstrong, the University of Maine’s cranberry specialist.

Maine’s cranberry growers harvested about 16,000 to 17,000 barrels of cranberries this fall on 263 acres, nearly double the 9,000 100-pound barrels harvested last year, Armstrong said.

The increased yield is a mixed blessing.

The nation is saturated with a glut of cranberries, so much so that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has asked growers to dump 35 percent of the harvest, Armstrong said.

Without a reduction in the 2001 crop, prices would fall to $10 per barrel, according to USDA. A one-third cut in production would raise prices to $19.50.

The nation’s leader in cranberry production is Wisconsin, accounting for more than half this year’s estimated 558 million-pound crop, followed by the bogs of Massachusetts and New Jersey, where six large processors led by juice maker Ocean Spray dominate the market.

Maine’s 45 growers won’t make enough money to break even this year, with last year’s total crop worth about $293,000, Armstrong said.

Growers say they need to make 35 to 40 cents per pound just to clear the books. Instead, growers received only 20 cents a pound last year and about the same this year, he said.

The rapid fall of the cranberry industry came as a surprise to Maine growers who used to view it as a stable crop.

Maine’s first commercial cranberry bogs were planted in 1989, when there was a shortage of berries and prices were high. Since 1996, prices paid to growers have fallen from $65.90 to as low as $15 per barrel, while the average cost of production is roughly $35.

“Back then everything looked golden,” Armstrong said.

The growers caused the glut and price decline by sharply expanding production in the 1990s. About a quarter of the nation’s cranberry acreage has been added since 1994, primarily in Wisconsin.

Ed Flanagan, president of Jasper Wyman & Son in Milbridge, said everyone had the same idea at the same time, and that caused the industry to go bust.

“I don’t know where the winners are in the cranberry business,” he said. “Maybe next year will be a turnaround.”

Back in 1989, Maine had hoped to boast 2,000 acres of cranberry bogs by the year 2001. Instead the acreage has held steady at less than 300 acres and some growing operations have been abandoned, Armstrong said.

Maine does have an advantage compared to other states, Armstrong said, in that most of the growers, besides Wyman and Cherryfield Foods Inc. in Washington County, harvest small crops.

Smaller growers have been forced to become innovative to sell their harvest, turning to roadside stands, pick-your-own operations and selling to local grocery stores, Armstrong said.

One Columbia Falls grower is successfully selling “Ruby Red Cranberry Vinegar” on the Internet.

Only one group has really come out ahead in the cranberry business. Organic cranberry growers make as much as $2.50 per pound selling at farmers markets, Armstrong said.

They may hold the future of the industry, or at least the lucrative future. Armstrong’s advice: “Keep it small and be innovative and become organic if they are at all up to that challenge.”