New York
CNN Business
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Perhaps one of the vital largest mysteries of Thanksgiving is the cranberry sauce — and we’re no longer even speaking about why other people devour it: What’s the maintain the upside-down labels on Ocean Spray cans of the stuff?
Observant customers have spotted that the Ocean Spray labels on jellied cranberry sauce cans are flipped, which means the rounded edge that’s usually at the backside of maximum canned items is on best of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce cans.
According to Ocean Spray, that’s intentional: It creates a unbroken serving enjoy.
The cans are “filled and labeled upside down with the rounded edge on top and the sharp can-like edge on the bottom to keep the jelly whole,” an Ocean Spray spokesperson advised CNN Business. “That creates an air bubble on the rounded side (a.k.a. the top) so customers can “swipe the edge of the can with a knife to break the vacuum and the log will easily slide out.”
This procedure has been in use for the reason that early 2000s.
Ingredients for a normal Thanksgiving meal will price consumers 13.5% extra this yr in comparison to closing, the marketplace analysis company IRI predicted previous this month, the use of information from October.
That contains cranberry sauce, whose value is up about 18% in comparison to closing yr as a result of cranberry vegetation are smaller this yr, sparking a provide squeeze.
The crop’s harvest in Wisconsin was once “lower than expected,” mentioned Tom Lochner, govt director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association, which produces a large slice of the rustic’s cranberries.
“We’re scratching our heads,” he mentioned, and dealing with mavens to nail down the motive. For now, his best possible guess is switches from chilly to sizzling to chill climate in cranberry-growing spaces.
“We still rebounded from last year,” he mentioned, including that there will have to be no scarcity of cranberries this yr.
Data from analysis company IRI presentations that recent cranberries are in truth less expensive this yr than closing, with costs shedding 9.9%. But that’s no longer the case for ready cranberry sauces, the place costs are up.
Lochner identified that processors set the ones costs, no longer growers, and that there are upper enter prices unrelated to berries — like “processing the fruit and getting it to market.”
Ocean Spray isn’t immune both. The corporate, which is a farmer co-operative, advised CNN Business that it has additionally has needed to hike costs of its canned cranberry sauce, however declined to present a particular proportion.
“Like many companies, we have had to modestly increase the cost of our sauce products during the past year—the first time in close to 10 years—to reflect current macro-economic pressures and cost of production for our 700 family-farmers,” an organization spokesperson mentioned.
–CNN Business’ Danielle Wiener-Bronner contributed to this record.
