Ocean Spray’s ‘Planet, Product, People, Prosperity’ pillars
Cranberry harvest time in Kingston Mass.
— Photo by Mathcar
Edited from a New England Council report.
Ocean Spray recently released its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, emphasizing its four pillars of Planet, Product, People and Prosperity.
In the inaugural report, Ocean Spray explains and analyzes the company’s ESG work and solidifies its alignment with sustainability and equity. Ocean Spray is an agricultural cooperative that works with 700 family farmers from the United States, Canada and Chile and sells its products in more than 100 countries. In the report’s materiality assessment, Ocean Spray illustrates the company’s priorities of “Generating Economic Value for the Cooperative, Product Information and Labeling, Product Safety and Quality, and Climate Change and GHG Emissions.”
“While the report itself may be a first for our organization, it represents more than 90 years of rich history—an always-present commitment to the environment, championed by the incredible people that have shaped our company for generations,” said CEO Tom Hayes. “One of the hallmarks of our cooperative structure and business practices, throughout our history, has always been sustainability. It is in our DNA. Today, our promise is to advance on this journey—to leverage holistic ESG strategy into actionable results, and further connect our farms to families for a better life.”
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Ocean State, a growers’ cooperative now based in Middleborough, Mass., in southeastern Massachusetts’s cranberry-bog region, was formed in 1930, in Hanson, Mass., by three cranberry growers who wanted to expand their market. Led by growers Marcus L. Urann, Elizabeth F. Lee and John C. Makepeace, the cooperative worked to develop more cranberry-based products beyond cranberry sauce and cranberry juice cocktail. (A.D. Makepeace Company, one of the original founders of Ocean Spray, has been in continuous operation since the late 19th Century and is the world's largest grower of cranberries.)
“The Cranberry Harvest on the Island of Nantucket,’’ 1880 oil painting by Eastman Johnson