Cranberry Processing Plant & Machinery Solutions

Incoming berries are washed and leaves, stems, vine and soft fruit are taken out. Frozen fruit is tempered before it goes forward so it cuts cleanly rather than crushing.

Berries are sliced or scored so the skin is opened, because an intact cranberry skin resists syrup. The cut style chosen here decides whether the finished fruit is halves, slices or whole-berry style.

Cut fruit is held in sugar syrup so that syrup moves into the fruit while juice moves out of it. Infusion is the stage that turns a sharply sour berry into a sweetened dried fruit.

Surplus syrup is drained off and recovered for reuse, and the infused fruit is dried in warm air until stable. Drying is kept gentle because the sugar now carried in the fruit scorches easily.

A light food-grade oil is tumbled onto the dried fruit so the sticky pieces stay separate, and the fruit is then cooled. Warm sweetened fruit packed straight off the dryer sets into a block.

Clusters are broken up and screened out, metal inspection runs, and the fruit is weighed and filled. Resealable retail pouches and bulk cases for industrial buyers are both run on the line.