Featured Employer: Ocean Spray

Welcome to our featured employer series! We will feature different companies/organizations in the food, nutrition, and public health fields.

What does Ocean Spray do?

Started by three cranberry growers in Massachusetts, Ocean Spray is a cooperative of cranberries and grapefruit growers. It is owned by more than 700 growers in different regions in the United States, Canada, and Chile. It produces 65% of the global cranberry harvest. They are most known for their cranberry beverages, all-time-favorite canned jellied cranberry sauce, Craisins Dried Cranberries, and a variety of cranberry products. All the cranberries are sustainably grown with the intention to protect the natural environment, improve the socioeconomic conditions of cranberry farmers and their families, and maintain the good health conditions of all farmed species. Their cranberries were verified as Sustainably Grown using the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA).

What is the company culture like?

Four of Ocean spray’s main values are:

  • Grower Mindset
    • “We embrace our farmer-owners innovative spirit and heritage through confidence, learning, and focus on the future.”
  • Sustainable Results
    • “Guided by purpose, we are focused on delivering results for our farmer-owners.”
  • Integrity Above All
    • “We are ethical, doing the right thing for our farmer-owners, customers, consumers, and each other.”
  • Inclusive Teamwork
    • “We build diverse and inclusive teams that strengthen our cooperative.”

What are their Environmental and Social Missions?

  • Health of People
    • Nutrition
      • Ocean spray has strong emerging science, nutrition, and regulatory teams to make sure they bring validated nutrition benefits to their consumers.
      • In the emerging science team, they accelerate the innovation within the cooperative through its Lighthouse, their innovation incubator. Learn more about Lighthouse Incubator here.
    • Partnerships
      • With Academia
        • Ocean Spray is actively involved in different cutting-edge research. They are one of the members of Tufts Innovation center. The emerging science, innovation, and regulatory affairs director Dr. Christina Khoo is specifically involved in Food as Medicine research with Tufts. In an interview with Nourish Cafe, she mentioned: “Food as medicine is not just a trend, but a foundational and holistic view of food and nutrition.” Learn more about Food as Medicine here. Learn more about Dr. Christina Khoo’s Journey here
      • With Feeding Americas
        • Ocean spray is working with different stakeholders such as Feed America to support people and communities extensively.
    • Community Fund
      • Ocean spray’s Community Fund aims at improving farmer communities’ quality of life.

  • Health of Planet
    • Regenerative Cranberry Agriculture
      • There are 6 farm sustainability principles for ocean spray
        • Farm succession for generations
        • Water Stewardship
        • Integrated Pest Management
        • Soil Health and Fertilizer optimization
        • Ecosystem conservation and biodiversity
        • Well-being for workers and the community
      • Build Sustainable Operations and Supply Chains
        • Ocean Spray’s Sustainability Objective: “Be an authentic, sustainable Cooperative with leading environmentally and socially responsible performance, initiatives, and programs with our operations, our farmer-owners, and business partners.”
  • Purposeful Products and Packaging
    • They partnered with How2Recycle to educate consumers on how to best recycle their products
    • Ocean spray also worked with Terracycle and encouraged consumers to recycle the flexible plastic Craisins dried cranberries packaging for alternative uses. And they are working towards designing fully reusable packaging.

What roles are they looking for?

After learning more about Ocean Spray, you might wonder… What type of people do they hire? Here are some past job titles that Ocean Spray has posted that may be particularly interesting to Friedman students. Hopefully, this will give you a better idea of the talent that Ocean Spray seeks!

  • Senior Scientist or Emerging Science/Tech
    • Passion for Science & Technology
    • Thrives in ambiguity
    • Research emerging technologies
    • Leverage technical expertise to support business objectives
    • Strong communication skills & business acumen
    • 3+ years of experience
  • Emerging Science Intern
    • Strong growth mindset and technical curiosity
    • Partner with internal teams and external vendors to scope various improvement efforts
    • Write-up post meeting reports
    • “Manage” inbound relationships
  • Principal Nutrition Scientist
    • PhD in Nutrition, Biochemistry
    • 5-15 years of experience
    • Project management skills and experience
    • Provides strategic direction for nutrition research
    • Ability to build credibility and engage key internal and external stakeholders
  • Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Internship
    • product development role
    • The Innovation Lighthouse
    • Incubator
  • Sustainability Data Analyst Ocean Spray
    • Strong communication, research, and data skills
    • perform data set analysis with advanced data management skills preferred
    • Creative thinking and a passion for innovation

Information about these roles has been sourced from the past postings/emails/LinkedIn

By Sam McGurgan, MA
Sam McGurgan, MA Associate Director of Career Services