The corporate headquarters of the giganitc cranberry processor Ocean Spray is located in Lakeville-Middleboro, Massachusetts. The visitor's center is located about one mile north of Plymouth Rock. In this part of the world where the cranberry is elevated to the status of a fruit celebrity, the success story of Ocean Spray is a legend. The small, red cranberry is one of just three economically important fruits native to North America, along with the blueberry and the Concord grape.
Cranberries grow wild only on low vines in the sandy soil of Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Before the arrival of English settlers, woodlands Indian tribes in the Northeast crushed cranberries to make dyes and pounded them into dried venison and deer fat to make a food termed pemmican. The average harvest of Massachusetts cranberries is about 200,000 tons, providing about 40 percent of the nation's total crop. The harvest comes in mid-October, when the berries are picked by two methods. The Ocean Spray legend began in 1930 when three New England cranberry growers founded the company as a farmers' cooperative. Today, the company sells about 80 percent of the world's cranberries, and has remained independent with stock being held by about 700 cranberry growers and 100 grapefruit growers.