Ocean Spray expands operations to cover Craisins craze

$18 million expansion set for Pacific Northwest, with an eye toward more lines at other plants nationally

LAKEVILLE-MIDDLEBORO, MA (April 27, 2006) – Ocean Spray has taken another step closer to quadrupling production of its popular Craisins® sweetened dried cranberries, with plans set for a new manufacturing line in Washington State and preliminary plans for more lines in Wisconsin, Massachusetts or Washington.

The newest addition to the company’s Craisins production network will be its existing plant in Markham, Wash., where preparations have begun for the installation of a $17.8 million line that will generate some 25 to 30 new jobs and produce some 15 million pounds of sweetened dried cranberries annually.  The announcement comes just two months after Ocean Spray broke ground on a $9.9 million, state-of-the-art juice extraction system at the same facility, and just one week before startup of a brand new 15-million-pound Craisins line in Middleboro, Mass.

“We’re going coast-to-coast with Craisins production,” said Ocean Spray VP of Operations Michael Stamatakos.   “The steady buildup of our manufacturing capacity – first in Wisconsin, then in Massachusetts, and now in Washington – is all part of a carefully-paced plan to match our production with the growing demand for our sweetened dried cranberries.”

And that growth has been dramatic – not only for the retail Craisins line in the U.S., which has tripled in sales over the past three years, but for the Ocean Spray sweetened dried cranberries that are featured in more than 1,000 different grocery, bakery and dairy products internationally – part of a booming ingredients business at Ocean Spray.

The ink was barely dry on the Ocean Spray Board’s approval of the Markham, Wash., expansion when the co-op’s management began signaling to its grower-owners and employees that plans already are in motion for adding still more Craisins capacity.

While the final decision has not been made, the company is eyeing three facilities – its newly-expanded plant in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., which is one of four Ocean Spray facilities in that state;  its production plant in Middleboro, Mass., which already has added two Craisins production lines over the past two years (the second of the those two lines will begin operation next week); or a second line at the Washington facility.
  
“We’ve generated something of a consumer craze for Craisins,” said Stamatakos, “and we’re building out our operations in measured phases to fully cover that demand.”

Ocean Spray’s marketing team attributes much of the popularity of Craisins to the worldwide consumer quest for healthy food alternatives.  A growing body of science points to the unique health benefits of cranberries – benefits which now are the subject of 11 different studies being conducted by the National Institutes of Health.

Headquartered in Massachusetts, Ocean Spray is an agricultural cooperative owned by more than 650 cranberry growers in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, British Columbia and Quebec, as well as more than 100 Florida grapefruit growers.  Ocean Spray is North America’s leading producer of canned and bottled juices and juice drinks, and has been the best-selling brand name in the canned and bottled juice category since 1981. Ocean Spray posted fiscal 2005 gross sales of roughly $1.4 billion.