How It's Made - How Cranberries Are Harvested And Processed

Cranberries are harvested in late September just in time to be available fresh here in time for the Canadian Thanksgiving, the second Monday of October.  They are available as canned or frozen throughout the rest of the year.  I stock up when they are available fresh for home canning a freezing.  Cranberries are one of a few fruits native to North America.  The vines prefer acidic, low nutrient soil conditions. 

Cranberries are harvested in a rather unique manner.  When the berries are ripe the fields are flooded.  A beater suspended from a mobile bridge creates turbulence pulling berries off the vines allowing them to float to the surface.  Workers manually move the floating cranberries to one corner of the field where they are pumped into a trailer.  The berries are rinsed to remove branches and leaves then transported to the processing plant where they are unloaded into canals.  The berries travel on conveyor belts through a cleaner station where workers uses brushes and water jets to remove any leaves and branches.  Cranberries are loaded into bins for freezing.  Those being used for juice are defrosted in hot water and mashed into a purée.  Enzymes are added to break-up the pectin then pressed three to four times to extract the juice.  The juice is filtered then water is evaporated to make it ten times concentrated.  Berries for fresh packaging and drying are sorted manually then electronically.  Those berries for fresh packaging go to the packaging department.  Berries that will be dried are cut in half, seeded and pressed.  They are dipped in sugar water then dried and packaged.

Here is a video showing how cranberries are harvested and processed.