CHERRYFIELD, Maine — Cherryfield Foods is getting out of the cranberry farming business.
“That’s the plan,” company spokesman David Bell said. “We hung in there longer than some of the bigger growers. … Sometimes you have to make hard business decisions.”
The 2015 season was a difficult one, with prices dropping as low as 12 cents per pound for wet harvested cranberries, which are gathered after the bog is flooded and the ripe berries float to the surface. Several of Maine’s approximately 30 growers declined to harvest this year because of low prices.
Dry harvested berries, which are picked by hand or raked mechanically, realized higher prices — $1.50 to $2.50 per pound — but dry harvesting accounts for only 16 percent of the total crop in Maine.
“[Growing cranberries] has been a long-term challenge, and we don’t see the market situation in North America turning around any time,” Bell said.
In 2015, cranberries did not contribute to the company’s bottom line, he said.
Cherryfield Foods owns about half the approximately 200 acres devoted to cranberry farming in Maine. What will happen to that land remains up in the air, Bell said. If someone wanted to purchase the land, the company would sell. However, he doesn’t see anyone wanting the farmland because of the low prices realized for cranberries.
Bell said no layoffs resulted from the decision to stop cranberry farming.
“That always makes you feel good when you can keep your dedicated employees,” he said.
Despite getting out of farming, Bell said Cherryfield foods has an ample supply of cranberries in its freezers and would continue to process and sell cranberry products.
How that supply will be replenished in the future has not yet been determined. How soon that decision has to be made will depend on how quickly the existing inventory can be sold.
“We’ve got quite a while to figure that out,” Bell said. “Based on our future needs, we will look to the marketplace.”
Charles Armstrong, cranberry specialist for the Maine Extension Service, said losing Cherryfield Foods wouldn’t change much for Maine growers or markets because the Canadian-owned firm has not purchased cranberries here and sells its berries in Canada.
Cherryfield Foods’ decision “shouldn’t affect the local markets whatsoever, good or bad,” Armstrong said.
“ Wyman’s has been the one buying most of the berries from the Washington County growers over the years,” he said. “So the real hardship would come if Wyman’s was to get out of the cranberry business as well.”
Wyman’s has no plans to get out of the cranberry business, according to Ed Flanagan, CEO of the company based in Washington County.
Flanagan had not heard about Cherryfield Foods’ decision before being contacted by the Bangor Daily News, but he said he was not surprised.
“I certainly understand the economics of why,” he said.
Wyman’s shut down its 16-acre cranberry bog last year, Flanagan said.
“We could buy them cheaper than we could grow them,” he said.
The company does not sell to juice or dried cranberry makers but to local markets, such as bakeries.
Cranberries account for less than 5 percent of Wyman’s bottom line, he said.
Flanagan said he doesn’t expect Cherryfield Foods’ decision to affect Wyman’s.
Armstrong said he understands the reasons for Cherryfield Foods decision, but the company will be missed.
“Where we will miss them, I believe, is in the area of idea exchange and having their eyes and ears as part of our cranberry family,” he said. “Hearing what things they were seeing on their acres … was helpful to the rest of the industry.”
Cherryfield Foods will continue to grow wild blueberries, which is its only other product, Bell said.
In addition to blueberries and cranberries, Wyman’s handles raspberries, strawberries, mangoes and cherries.