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Harvesting cranberries in Wisconsin

Trade representatives from a dozen countries joined Wisconsin Ag Secretary Rod Nilsestuen and others to watch the cranberry harvest in central Wisconsin on Thursday. The Gottschalk Family Marsh, a multi-generational operation near Wisconsin Rapids hosted the visitors from Australia, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Mexico, Japan and South Korea to tell the story of Wisconsin cranberries. The guests got an aerial view of the marsh by helicopter, then put on waders and stepped into the water to help gather the berries.

Tom Lochner with the Wisconsin Cranberry Growers Association says idea was to give the international visitors a better understanding of cranberries which they can then use to market the berries in their countries. “We’ve seen export markets grow from virtually non-existent ten-fifteen years ago to now we’re exporting about 25 percent of the crop.” Cranberries are grown only in North America, “So when you go into Great Britain or Germany or Asia or even Mexico, first you have to educate people what a cranberry is and then convince them to eat one.”

Wisconsin is the nation’s top cranberry-producing state; Lochner says the crop will be around 4 million barrels this year, a little under the record 4.4 million barrels produced last year.

AUDIO: Tom Lochner talks about marketing the crop 2:33

Thanks to Mike Warren, WDLB, Marshfield, Wisconsin for the story.