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4.64 million. That’s how many barrels of cranberries the state of Wisconsin produced last fall.
With autumn in full swing + cranberry season at its peak, we’re looking at some berry interesting facts about the state fruit.
Facts about Cranberries
- Almost $1 billion in revenue is created by the industry in Wisconsin, accounting for 4,000+ jobs.
- Over 60% of the country’s favorite Thanksgiving fruit comes from the Badger State. The rest come from Massachusetts, Washington + Oregon.
- It takes ~200 cranberries to make a single can of sauce + 4,000+ berries to produce a gallon of juice.
- Only 5% of the berries are eaten fresh. The other 95% are sent off for juicing, sauce-making + drying.
- 21,000 acres across 20 Wisconsin counties grow + harvest cranberries in their marshes.
- The name of the fruit comes from Dutch + German settlers in the 1600s who gave it the moniker after the flower’s resemblance to the head and beak of a crane.
- Cranberries have 4 interior air chambers, which is why marsh-flooding is the best way to harvest the fruit.
- Nearly 20% of cranberries are eaten between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
- The first marshes date back to the 1830s, before Wisconsin became a state in 1848.
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