Ocean Spray Receiving Station

British Columbia is one of the largest cranberry-growing regions in the world; therefore, it makes perfect sense Ocean Spray, the worlds largest cranberry cooperative of more than 700 growers, built its first new receiving station in 15 years in the area. The high-tech receiving station will allow Ocean Spray to process its Richmond-area crop more efficiently.

The $26 million state-of-the-art facility offers more convenient access to local growers and more capacity providing a 50 percent increase to the current capability. Cranberries are Richmonds largest agricultural crop, and the new facility will process approximately 100 million pounds of the fruit each year. The facility also includes equipment to sort and screen cranberries as well as the means to bin all outbound fruit.

In a news release, Peter Dhillion, a longtime local cranberry grower and Vice Chairman of the Ocean Spray Board said As Ocean Spray continues to expand business across the globe; the Richmond community has been an important partner. Almost 20% of Ocean Sprays total acreage in North America is in British Columbia, and so the new state-of-the-art receiving station will help us maximize the efficiency of handling our crop.

As cranberries are typically wet-picked (harvested by flooding the beds), when they come to the receiving station to be cleaned, sorted, and stored, there is some moisture present. To combat the moisture throughout the processing of the tart fruit, hot-dip galvanizing was used on the steel structures within the new facility. Hot-dip galvanizing uses natural zinc to provide steel maintenance-free corrosion protection. With the help of sustainable hot-dip galvanized steel, Ocean Spray will be able to process cranberries safely and efficiently through this vital station well into the future.