Crimson Crop
Harvesting Fresh from the Vine
It’s thought that the wild
fruit graced the banquet table during an immortalized three days
of feasting in 1621.
Nearly four centuries after the
first Thanksgiving, cranberries continue their association with
the holiday season, a tradition that since the Civil War coincides
with commercial harvesting of the crimson crop in Wisconsin.
“We start in late September
sending fruit to Canada for their Thanksgiving,” said Ray
Habelman, a fourth-generation cranberry grower from the Tomah
area. To accommodate the Canadian holiday (celebrated on the second
Monday of October), Habelman Brothers Company picks a type of
cranberry—called Ben Lear—that ripens several weeks
earlier than the majority of their crops. Ray said the Ben Lears
account for about 20 percent of the berries they sell.
The bulk of the later harvest is
moved out during the Thanksgiving (U.S.) and Christmas periods,
but not only to stateside markets. Just as the Pilgrims took notice
of the brightly colored native fruit, an international audience
remains intrigued by cranberries. The day we visited Habelman
Brothers’ packaging plant near Tomah, trucks were being
loaded with cases of 12-ounce bagged fruit destined for England
and The Netherlands. “Our berries go quite a ways,”
Ray observed.
A Family Firm
The Habelman operation dates back
to 1907, a time when commercial growing was just getting established
in the central part of Wisconsin. Ray’s great-grandfather
began raising cranberries on 13 acres of marshland, and he eventually
brought his five sons into the business—the original “brothers”
in the company name.
Today, the family firm consists
of Ray, Ray’s father (also named Ray), two cousins, and
an uncle. The majority work at the largest of the Habelman marshes,
a 400-acre site near Millston. Ray, who learned the trade as he
grew up, graduated from Marquette with a business degree six years
ago, and came into the business full time, supervises operations
at the family’s Tomah location, which spans about 160 acres.
A third operation, occupying 50 acres, is situated near Ft. McCoy.
Most marshes and packaging facilities are on Oakdale and Jackson
electric cooperative lines.
From the business’ 1907 startup,
the Habelmans have focused on selling fresh fruit—cranberries
packaged as whole berries. Ray explained that 95 to 98 percent
of Wisconsin’s crop goes to “process,” meaning
it gets made into juice or other products such as the dried, raisin-like
“Craisins.”
Shipping 300–400,000 cases
of cranberries each year (a case consists of 24 12-ounce bags),
the Habelmans are the state’s largest growers producing
fresh berries. They contract with Ocean Spray, the huge cranberry
cooperative headquartered in Massachusetts, for marketing and
shipping services.
“Ocean Spray has only about
seven fresh growers in Wisconsin,” he said, pointing out
that Ocean Spray’s national total for shipping fresh berries
is 750–800,000 cases per year, including the Habelman total.
That means almost half of Ocean Spray’s fresh berries come
from Habelman marshes.
Fresh Finesse
Ray said this year’s harvest
began September 22 for the Ben Lear berries and October 12 for
the others, and the goal is to complete picking by November.
“Going later than that,
you risk getting sheets of ice on the marshes, and you can’t
pick under those conditions,” he explained.
Harvesting and handling fresh cranberries
require distinctive equipment and methods.
To harvest all types of cranberries,
the large, rectangular beds where they grow must be flooded. Picking
fresh fruit requires a raking machine operated in relatively shallow
water, as opposed to machines that “beat” process
berries from vines covered by about a foot of water.
“Beaters will bruise the fruit,
but that’s not as critical if you’re sending them
to a processing plant,” Ray explained. He also noted that
as new fresh-fruit berry beds are developed, vines need to be
“trained” to lay a certain direction in order to facilitate
picking with raking machines. “There’s a sequence
to the passes our harvesting machines take in each bed; you can’t
go against the grain,” he continued, pointing out that with
the deeper water used for harvesting process berries, the lay
of the vines isn’t as critical a consideration.
The Path to Package
Fresh-raked berries flow by short
conveyor from harvesting machines into small steel barges that
are hoisted and emptied into waiting trucks. At the nearby packaging
plant—a facility the Habelmans have at both Tomah and Millston—the
berries are dried and stored in 50-pound crates or 300-pound bins,
kept cold until they are needed for packaging.
One of the first devices encountered
by the fruit on its path to the package is a contraption known
as a Bailey Seperator. A conveyor dumps berries into the top of
the box, and they bounce off a series of wooden boards and onto
another conveyor. The theory is that healthy, ripe berries have
a characteristic “bounce” that distinguishes them
from berries that aren’t acceptable for the fresh-fruit
market. Rejected berries will likely be sold for processing.
Next, the cranberries pass through
a number of machines that screen the fruit by color (a uniform
redness is, naturally, desirable). Among the final sortings is
a trip past a cadre of human inspectors, who eye the product and
manually remove anything unsuitable.
Most of the cranberries (about 85
percent, according to Ray) are packed in 12-ounce bags, 24 of
them to a carton. The rest go into larger bags that are shipped
to volume retailers such as Sam’s Club. Ray said the various
screening procedures keep the number of substandard berries in
a bag to 3 percent or less.
Though the picking concludes by
November, the berries—dried and stored for up to three months
in giant refrigerators—continue being packaged until just
before Christmas.
“Ocean Spray lets us know
when we have an order, and we will package as needed,” said
Ray. “Once there’s an order, we try to move them out
the door within two days.”
To accomplish the harvest and packaging
on such a tight timetable, Habelman Brothers Company has 38 full-time,
year-round employees and hires about 160 seasonal workers. In
the off-season, attention goes to planting and developing new
beds and grooming existing marshes.
“We like to renovate a bog
every 25 years,” Ray explained. “Although you can
get production from vines that are 75 or 100 years old, the yield
starts dropping. We’re in a constant process of putting
in new varieties and new vines.”
Top of the Crop
According to Ray, widespread attention
to production among Wisconsin growers has elevated the Badger
State to the top of U.S. production. “In the 1990s, Massachusetts
and Wisconsin were pretty close,” he observed. “Massachusetts
won’t catch us again. We’ll about double their production
this year.”
Indeed, Department of Agriculture
forecasts for 2003 estimate Wisconsin will top 3 million barrels
of cranberries (a barrel is 100 pounds), while Massachusetts will
come in at about 1.7 million. The U.S. total is projected at 5.83
million barrels, meaning Wisconsin boasts more than half of it.
Statistics also show that of the
11 commercial cranberry-producing Wisconsin counties, three of
them—Monroe, Jackson, and Wood—account for a majority
of the state’s production.
That’s where the Habelmans
are situated.
With nearly a century of experience
growing their berries and their business, the family aims to ensure
that the holidays keep their crimson hue and that the nation’s
Cranberry King continues its reign.—Perry Baird
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