This week at the company headquarters in Massachusetts, the Ocean Spray Cooperative hosted their annual Next Wave class. The Next Wave class is designed for “new growers who have joined the family farm or growers who are taking over their family farm”, and its goal is to help the new growers understand how the business is run on the cooperative end just as they are learning how the business is run on the growing end. This year, Pine Island Cranberry sent assistant manager Michael Haines and webmaster Stefanie Haines (that’s me! Hello!) to learn more about the co-op side of the business.
The winter weather made travel a bit complicated, but even with missing the first morning session, we obtained a great deal of useful information. The good folks at Ocean Spray led us through a history of the co-op, how the cooperative model functions, and how that is integrated with many of the departments within the co-op. The mock Jeopardy game led by the legal department was a highlight, giving us a chance to catch up on what we’d missed and giving everyone else a chance to review earlier sessions.
Most importantly, though, it gave Michael and I a chance to put some faces to names, both for other growers and for the staff at Ocean Spray. “I was familiar with some people just from tagging along with either Dad or Abbott [Lee, of Integrity Propagation],” Michael says, “but this was great because it’s smaller than the Annual Growers Meeting and we’re all mostly starting from the same place.” He also really liked hearing from growers in different regions. “It’s a great chance to widen your horizons. You can get together and talk with people who are trying new or different methods and bring it home to try for yourself.” Some aren’t practical for us, he said, but were just cool to hear about: “Some of the Wisconsin growers were saying the ice is so thick they can just drive trucks onto the bog and sand them that way!”
It was also a fantastic opportunity to see what happens once the fruit leaves the farm and how much has to be done to get the product to the market. Ocean Spray’s very thorough program also showed us a lot about the supply chain, innovation, and marketing, which were all very interesting! “It’s amazing how much more stuff happens,” Mike says. “The first step is leaving the farm, but then they still have to come up with products and how to move fruit.” The real high point for Michael and I, though, was the chance to tour the Middleboro processing facility. Our group was led by plant director Earl Larson, who took us all the way through the process and made it both enjoyable and educational.
In fact, everyone at Ocean Spray was great. Judy Joy and Jeni Francoeur ran an excellent program, as they always do. Everyone was extremely welcoming, and it was well-run from start to finish! We couldn’t have asked for anything better…except for maybe a little less snow.