The cranberry giant, Ocean Spray, has sold about 50 acres of land and a building totaling nearly 163,000 square feet at its world headquarters in Lakeville. The company will now lease those properties as a tenant while continuing to stay on the site and own other land there, according to documents filed Wednesday 31 August in Plymouth County.
Sources close to the transaction said the sale price for the property was about $40 million, and the buyer was Dallas real estate investment firm Fairways Equities.
Ocean Spray spokesman Kellyanne Dignan did not confirm the sale price or the buyer, but said the 20-year leaseback agreement, with options for extensions, will give the cranberry giant a significant influx of capital for “investments in other areas of the business.” She emphasized that Ocean Spray is staying in Lakeville.
“We are committed to this headquarters. We are not looking to move out of this facility,” Dignan said. “There is literally no change to our day-to-day operations here.”
Dignan said Ocean Spray is the largest employer in Lakeville and has about 500 employees at its world headquarters, which straddles the Lakeville-Middleboro border just off I-495.
Dignan said that as a cooperative, owned by more than 800 growers, Ocean Spray has no public shareholders and limited ways to raise funds for improvements.
Ocean Spray and its growers process about 60 percent of the world’s cranberry supply, with more than $1.7 billion in annual net sales, according to BusinessWire.
Ocean Spray’s largest cranberry grower in Massachusetts is A.D. Makepeace, which produced more than 40 million pounds of cranberries last year on about 300 bogs over more than 1,800 acres.
The Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association announced about a week ago that Massachusetts cranberry growers could expect a 5 percent decrease in harvest this year, compared to last year’s crop, according to StateHouse News Service. The fall harvest season is approaching after a dry summer marked by ongoing drought conditions.
Dignan said that while August data indicated this year’s harvest actually could be similar to last year’s, she expected to get updated harvest numbers by Thursday.
“We could feel differently when we see the fresh data,” she said.
A.D. Makepeace and the Cape Cod association draw thousands of people to their annual Cranberry Harvest Celebration, a fall tradition in Wareham.
Source: southcoasttoday.com
