Sustainable cranberry farming: Dry-harvested Dutch berries power Eosta’s season extension
Leading global organic produce distributor Eosta will now offer cranberries from early November through late December to quench the rising end-of-year demand in Europe and other markets.
The company’s supplies will come from The Cranberry Company, an organic producer based in the Dutch region of Krimpenerwaard, renowned for employing only handpicking and dry-harvesting methods for the fruit.
The growers own around 50 acres of peat soil, of which only 12 to 14 acres are planted with cranberries. The remainder is left to what The Cranberry Company managing director Matthijs Crouwers called nature restoration.
“There are a lot of other species of plants and animals, and some are endangered species, so we want to be careful with the soil,” he explained. “It’s also good for the cranberries because the more diversity, the less prone the plants are to catching a disease.”
Crouwers said they only use dry-harvesting or hand-picking with their fruit because these methods preserve the natural wax that coats the cranberries’ skin, which is necessary for a longer shelf life. Additionally, wet harvesting would saturate the moist peat ground and damage the root systems of many species.
“We've never wet harvested; in the first few years, the crop was not that big, and it was picked by hand. Now that the harvest is growing, we're really looking into decreasing labor time and increasing efficiency by incorporating machines,” he added.
The growers are nearly done harvesting, and thanks to this season’s quadrupled yield, they will be able to supply all of Eosta’s cranberries for the year. Crouwers said the 2025 crop is expected to be around 11,000, a significant increase compared to last year’s 2,000.
“We have been delivering to Eosta for over four years, and it’s nice to see that this year we will be able to supply the full quantity that Eosta requires,” he said.
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