Ocean Spray last week officially opened a new $26 million, 25,600-square-foot receiving facility in Richmond that immediately boosts the amount of cranberries that the global co-operative can store in Richmond by 50% while simultaneously speeding operations for area cranberry growers.
Controversy, however, surrounds what will happen to Ocean Spray's original 25,000-square-foot Richmond receiving facility on No. 6 Road, which is within the agricultural land reserve (ALR) near a business park.
Critics such as Richmond councillor Harold Steves told Business in Vancouver they fear that the site's new owner, Peter Dhillon, will try to have the old three-acre site rezoned as industrial land. Dhillon told BIV that he has yet to decide what to do with the old Ocean Spray site. He said he plans to conduct a thorough review of the site to determine its best potential use but would not rule out attempting to remove the site from the ALR. (See "Road improvements paving the way to the end of the ALR"; Peter Ladner's At Large column, page 40.)
Ocean Spray obtained its new 8.68-acre site at the self-named 5700 Dhillon Way as part of a land swap agreement with Dhillon in 2010.
Dhillon previously owned and operated a driving range on the site, which is also in the ALR.
"The new Ocean Spray site is strategic," said Dhillon, who owns Richberry Farms, Canada's largest cranberry grower.
He farms cranberry fields adjacent to the new Ocean Spray site.
"The new site is in the heart of the cranberry growing area, so it's not just my operations that will benefit," Dhillon said. "Other growers in Richmond will have an easier time accessing this facility."
Ocean Spray's new receiving station can process approximately 45 million kilograms annually, up from the 30 million-kilogram capacity at the old receiving station. The new plant will have three times as much land area for staging and receiving inbound and outbound cranberry trucks, as well as the capacity to receive three cranberry trucks at a time versus one at the old plant.
Dhillon noted that the new receiving station is closer to Highway 91 so the berries have less distance to travel to the U.S., where they get turned into juice at various Ocean Spray manufacturing plants (see sidebar).
Ocean Spray's other Metro Vancouver receiving station is in Langley's Gloucester Estates business park.
Approximately 95% of B.C.'s cranberry farmers sell berries to Ocean Spray and in turn own a small stake in the co-operative, which generates about US$1.5 billion annually in sales and controls about half of the North American cranberry market.
Overall, B.C. generates about 12% of North America's cranberry production.
The rare B.C. cranberry growers who make juice with their own berries do so because of a passion for their product and for having a business that is as much a manufacturer as it is a farming operation.
"It's a lot easier to sell to Ocean Spray than to make your own juice," said Bremner Foods owner Terry Bremner, who manufactures the only 100% pure cranberry juice sold in local grocery stores. "We started making blueberry juice about 12 years ago and then, when we started growing cranberries, making the cranberry juice was a natural progression."
Dhillon, in contrast, sells his entire production – about 12 million kilograms of cranberries annually – to Ocean Spray. He owns an approximate 4% stake in Ocean Spray and is the co-operative's vice-chairman.
Dhillon owns about 800 acres of cranberry bog in B.C. In recent years, he added 500 acres in Quebec, where he said the land is cheaper and the return greater.
"I'm always looking to increase our position in the cranberry industry," Dhillon said. "It's an industry I've been in since the age of 10 or 11. So I grew up in it and know it well." •
