Ocean Spray is an agricultural co-op that specializes in growing, manufacturing and producing cranberries.

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COO Ken Romanzi relates Ocean Spray’s success to Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. “In his words, successful companies find their hedgehog – the one thing they do better than anyone else – and really focus on it,” Romanzi notes. “And that is what we believe in. We harvest, process, produce, innovate and market cranberries better than anyone else. That is why we have a strong business and a strong brand.”   

Marking its 80th anniversary this year, Ocean Spray – an agricultural cooperative that specializes in growing, manufacturing and producing cranberry and grapefruit products – is proud to be one of the leading food and beverage firms in the United States. It is currently the No. 1 brand of canned and bottled juice drinks in the nation, according to Nielsen Syndicated Services.    

Since Ocean Spray introduced its cranberry juice cocktail in 1930, the company has revolutionized the marketplace with the introduction of cranberry products such as the industry’s first juice blend, CranApple™ cranberry apple juice drink.    

In 1976, the company expanded its co-op to include grapefruit growers. Since then, it has added grapefruit juices and juice blends with flavors ranging from strawberries, tangerines and mango. In 1993, Ocean Spray launched Craisins® sweetened dried cranberries that now come in original cranberry flavor, as well as cherry and orange flavors.   

“In our consumers’ minds, the Ocean Spray brand has terrific stretch and elasticity,” Romanzi says. “We don’t just stand for cranberries. We make something that tastes good and is good for you. The brand occupies equal weight in consumers’ minds.”   

Although the company competes in the shelf-stable juice and dried fruit aisles, what drives Ocean Spray’s success is its ability to look beyond the obvious. “We always look at much broader opportunities than what’s already around,” Romanzi says. “We compete in the non-alcoholic beverage sector, which led us to come up with the Diet Ocean Spray product line. Half of the drinking public drinks diet beverages. We [also] compete in the dried fruit category as well. In the last 18 months, cranberries took the No. 2 spot from prunes as top dried fruits in the United States. It is behind raisins, and we won’t be satisfied until cranberries are No. 1.”

Eighty Years and Beyond
A passion for something almost al­ways leads to something great, but for the founders of Ocean Spray, a love for cranberries transformed the company into an American icon. The company’s longevity speaks to the strength of Ocean Spray’s brand, Romanzi says.   

“Eighty years is a long time for an agricultural co-op to grow at the rate we’ve grown over the past years,” he says. “Our strong marketing efforts have helped Ocean Spray become the shelf-stable juice leader. We are the ones that both invented and drive that category. Over the last few years, our advertising has been ex­tremely strong and effective. We used to define ourselves as a cranberry co-op. Now, we’re a food and beverage company owned by growers, and that makes us unique.”   

Romanzi says he sees this success worldwide when he travels for business. “Wherever I go, people tell me how much they love [the Ocean Spray] brand,” he states.

Ongoing Innovation
“Our goal is to continue to delight the consumer with a constant stream of new innovation that satisfies their every beverage and snacking needs,” Director of New Product Development Kelly Reilly says.

“Each year, we strive to come out with product news on our existing portfolio, whether it’s new flavors or added fortificants, while every other year we launch a major innovation in the juice or dried fruit aisle. Most recent launches have included Ocean Spray Diet Juice Drinks, the first juice of its kind with five little calories and real fruit juice. In 2008, we launched Cranergy™ Energy Juice Drinks, with a natural source of energy – green tea extract and B vitamins – to give your body a lift throughout the day.”   

Continuous product development is part of the company’s everyday routine. “We come up with ideas for new products all the time,” Romanzi emphasizes.

“We have a new product development process that constantly fills the pipeline of products. We put each new idea through three questions: Is it good for the consumer? Can we commercialize it? And, is it economical?”   

As long as all three questions are answered, Romanzi says products are then unveiled internally and Ocean Spray comes up with a production calendar.

“That’s what our routine is, and we follow the same routine with beverages, foods and dried fruit products,” he continues. “Some products are major, some minor, and some are in between. It all depends on what comes up in our pipeline.   

“Our company continues to make new products to satisfy consumer needs, and the manufacturing network thrives on the opportunities and challenges that new products bring.”

Crazy for Craisins
Ocean Spray Craisins® Sweetened Dried Cranberries have been popular since they were introduced in 1993. American Culinary ChefsBest, an independent organization dedicated to honoring the best products in America, has recognized this sweet cranberry snack as “best tasting” among major national competitors.   

“Ocean Spray was inspired to develop Craisins® Sweetened Dried Cranberries out of an opportunity to satisfy consumer’s ongoing desire for healthy snacking,” Reilly notes. “Ocean Spray was already in the food business selling its beloved sauce during the holiday season, and we saw an opportunity to extend the cranberry beyond Thanksgiving into more everyday snacking.”   

The Craisins brand product line includes:

• Craisins® Original Sweetened Dried Cranberries
• Craisins® Cherry Flavor Sweetened Dried Cranberries
• Craisins® Orange Flavor Sweetened Dried Cranberries
• Craisins® 100 Calorie Packs
• Craisins® Trail Mix – Cranberry and chocolate
• Craisins® Trail Mix – Cranberry, fruits and nuts
  

“Craisins were developed by our R&D folks,” Romanzi adds. “Once upon a time, the cranberry juice extraction process left behind an unusable by-product. The cranberries were mashed to create the juice and all that was left was waste. The patented process Ocean Spray uses today extracts the juice in a different way, leaving the cranberry hull intact. We then re-infuse the hull with juice and sweetener and dry the fruit. Thus, Craisins® sweetened dried cranberries were born.”   

In 2009, Ocean Spray added two sweetened dried cranberry production lines to its manufacturing facility in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., in response to continually increasing consumer demand. Global demand for Ocean Spray Craisins® Sweetened Dried Cranberries has doubled over the last three years and is expected to double again over the next three.   

Ocean Spray sweetened dried cranberries are also featured as ingredients in more than 1,000 different grocery, bakery and dairy products around the world today. “We’ve generated a consumer craze for Craisins, and we’re building out our operations in measured phases to fully cover that demand,” Romanzi says.

Doing Well
Although almost all businesses suffer during a recession, Ocean Spray hasn’t. “Consumers may have been tight with spending, but our business is doing well. We continue to invest in strong marketing plans, terrific innovation and constant retail promotion,” Romanzi explains.    

In fact, business is up 10 percent so far this year, he adds. “The way I look at it, people’s appetites do not necessarily recede during a recession,” he continues. “Consumers may eat out less, but it’s more beneficial to our brand if they eat more at home, because they most likely will use our products.”   

Trends are forever changing in the food business, but although different types of foods and beverage come out all the time, Romanzi says healthier options are often few and far between. “As trends continue to emerge, there are so many less healthier options out there,” he states. “We are able to provide good-for-you healthier choices.”

A Family Co-Op
Cranberry farmers Marcus Urann and John Makepeace from Massachusetts and Elizabeth Lee from New Jersey founded Ocean Spray in 1929. Today, more than 600 cranberry growers in North America and 50 grapefruit growers in Florida own the company. It operates four beverage plants in Kenosha, Wis.; Sulphur Springs, Texas; Henderson, Nev.; and Bordentown, N.J. Together, the plants produce more than 3.5 million containers a day and 90 million cases of bottled products a year.   

In addition, Ocean Spray maintains four food plants located in Middleborough, Mass.; Wisconsin Rapids and Tomah, Wis.; and Markham, Wash., as well as several fruit receiving stations in the U.S. and Canada. “We produce a combination of juice products, concentrated products and primarily sweetened cranberries at these facilities,” Director of Manufacturing Mark Pellegrini says.   

Pellegrini briefly explains Ocean Spray’s manufacturing process: “Our growers harvest the cranberries and bring them into our receiving stations, where they are cleaned and put into bins. Cranberries are then brought into the plants where we make concentrates for the beverages, cranberry sauce and sweetened dried cranberries.”   

To streamline its manufacturing pro­cess, the company started the Ocean Spray Continuous Improvement program, which is a combination of lean principles such as 5S and Six Sigma.  

“Our vision is to be a world-class food and beverage manufacturing network by driving continuous improvement through our nine principles of manufacturing excellence,” Pellegrini explains.    

“We have introduced and institutionalized rigorous problem-solving tools into the work we do. We want all our folks to have these tools and capabilities, so as they work on driving improvements, they are using a more structured process.”   

According to Pellegrini, the manufacturing principles are:

• Define the right work.
• Target the right measures.
• Isolate the critical few.
• Link improvement to everyone’s work.
• Clean and organize the work logically.
• Control and communicate the work visually.
• Institutionalize key processes and tools.
• Apply proven technologies.
• Build and sustain organizational capabilities.
  

Because Ocean Spray runs at high capacity, the company says it is always looking to drive costs down. “We are always looking at ways to improve our capacity,” Pellegrini says.  “We have done this with a combination of process im­provements to reduce downtime and increase line speeds and by leveraging capital investment where appropriate.    

“Any good manufacturing organization will always challenge itself to drive continuous improvements in every level of the organization,” Pellegrini says. “Our manufacturing network wants to be seen as being absolutely passionate about safety, quality and customer service, totally committed to supporting innovation, and relentless in our pursuit of cost productivity. This vision is what motivates our 1,400 manufacturing employees each day.”

Working Together
Pellegrini has witnessed many changes at Ocean Spray since he joined the company in 2003. First, the manufacturing network has expanded from one food plant to four food plants. “Our food plants were once considered the little brothers of our beverage business,” he states, noting that Ocean Spray today manufactures more than 120 million pounds of sweetened dried cranberries, up from 30 million pounds six years ago. “Now, we have four food plants that rival the beverage plants in production and throughput.”   

All the plants work together to produce better products. “The philosophy is that we don’t have eight individual plants,” Pellegrini notes. “We have a manufacturing network of plants and we leverage the principles we have and our best practices by being a network.”    

For example, working as a network helps Ocean Spray to build opportunities and share tools and processes such as hiring programs and technology. “There is no reason for each plant to reinvent that,” Pellegrini says. “There is a lot of value in working as a network as opposed to facilities working independently.”

Eye on the Future
Ocean Spray is right on track for continuous growth. Ocean Spray is a nearly $2 billion company, and Romanzi says there is always more room to grow. “We want to be a $3 billion company through organic growth,” he states. “We would love to entertain acquisitions and alliances and feel that we can stretch and add more to our company. We may not have a financial plan to get to $3 billion yet, but we have aspirational goals to direct us to that level.”   

However, Ocean Spray plans to stay within its current international markets. “There is still a lot of room left in the markets that we already entered, and we want to maximize the opportunities there,” Romanzi states.   

“We are in a sweet spot,” Romanzi emphasizes. “Our products taste good and they are good for you. Consumers around the world are always looking for variety in packaging and flavor, and that is something that we understand. We understand that consumers are fragmented more than ever and they are always looking for new products.”