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Harvesting “fresh” cranberries

Wisconsin produces nearly 60 percent of the nation’s cranberries and most of them go into the processed market for juices and other products…but a few go into bags to be sold as “fresh” cranberries. Harvesting cranberries for the “fresh” market is a little different.

Wisconsin’s Alice in Dairyland, Katie Wirkus spent some time with the Habelman Brothers Company near Tomah, Wisconsin recently as they brought-in the crop. For starters, they do not “corral” the berries like the frozen, juice and processed people do. The “fresh” cranberries go into a bucket and that lifts them into the truck which then hauls them to the processing plant. There the berries go through the “bounce” test; “A fresh cranberry will bounce” says Wirkus, “then they go through a series of sorters which take out the immature and undesirable fruit followed by “hand sorters”, six people who watch the cranberries zoom by, picking out anything the mechanical sorters might have missed.

The fresh berries are packaged from now to Thanksgiving so they are in the stores and available for the holidays.

AUDIO: Wirkus talks about the experience 2:30 mp3