There will be over 1 million more barrels of North American cranberries this year, according to the Cranberry Marketing Committee. One barrel unit weighs 100 pounds.
Hableman Bros. Co. of Tomah, WI reports North America’s three major cranberry-producing regions are Massachusetts, Quebec and Wisconsin. The Badger state is easily the largest shipper of fresh cranberries as well as cranberries destined for processing. Only about 3 percent of the total crop goes to the fresh market.
Habelman Bros. Co. is one of the world’s largest fresh market cranberry producers and in 2020, the grower’s harvest is expected to began the third week of September. Harvest should run through October, with packing and shipping continuing through mid-December.
Traditionally, about 55 percent of the fresh cranberry crop is packed and sold in November. Twenty-five percent is packaged and sold in December. The balance is sold in the front end of the season — September and October. Some of that early volume is shipped to Canada, where Thanksgiving is celebrated six weeks before Thanksgiving in the United States. This year the Canadian Thanksgiving is October 12.
Habelman is a fourth-generation company, which was founded in 1907.