The humble cranberry pops up this time of year in everything from traditional relishes to Christmas cookies and cocktails.
Cranberries might be a staple on Thanksgiving tables, but a glut of U.S. supplies has gotten so large that fruit could be headed to the compost pile.
Just as demand is hitting its seasonal peak, American processors are anxiously awaiting government approval that would allow them to turn excess fruit into fertilizer. The program would be the first of its kind for cranberries.
Supplies have piled up amid bountiful U.S. harvests and a surge in imports. Inventories were large enough to top consumption before farmers even started gathering this year’s crop in September. The overhang prompted growers and processors to vote in favor of the disposal program at a biannual meeting in August of the Cranberry Marketing Committee, a group set up by a federal marketing order in 1962 to ensure an orderly supply of cranberries.The U.S. Department of Agriculture could rubber-stamp the proposal this week.
“The order will allow the industry to get back into supply-and-demand balance,” said Kellyanne Dignan, director of global cooperative communications at Ocean Spray Cranberries, the largest U.S. producer and processor.
The humble cranberry pops up this time of year in everything from traditional relishes to Christmas cookies and cocktails.
But becoming a celebrity of the fruit world hasn’t been enough to reverse the slowing growth of demand, leading the industry to take desperate measures to keep prices from collapsing.
Under the proposed initiative, fruit processors and exporters would be responsible for supply disposal. Some can be donated or used for research, but the lion’s share will likely end up as compost.
The cranberry committee also recommended that growers reduce next year’s production, leaving it 25 percent below average sales of the past six years, according to Michelle Hogan, executive director of the Wareham, Massachusetts-based group.
Even as U.S. exports climbed, with shipments to China helping boost American shipments by 33 percent in the past five seasons, that hasn’t been enough to prevent a jump in inventories.
The problem is that U.S. production has grown 19 percent since 2011 and imports, mostly from Canada, have tripled.