Cranberry Harvest Really Cooking… Jellies That Is
For 10 years, Debbie Grenier and Tina Labossiere have really been cooking. Literally.
About a decade ago, the two friends began making jellies together in Grenier’s state and town-licensed Harwich kitchen. Using locally-grown Cape Cod cranberries, their home based business Cranberry Harvest, Inc., has grown steadily every year, allowing the two mothers a flexible schedule and the ability to spend much more time at home with their children than the average working mom. The two met at a mother and baby playgroup in 1995 when their now 12-year-olds were only six months old.
“She and I just really hit it off,” says Labossiere. “We have personalities that really mesh together. Where one of us lacks, the other one is strong and vice versa, so we work really well together. We even go on vacation together. We haven’t gotten sick of each other yet!”
The two joined forces and embarked on the idea of sharing a home-based business shortly after meeting. Their first attempt did not involve cranberries, however.
“We first went into business together in 1995, not making jellies but sewing ballerina bunnies. It was two years or so before we started the jellies. We began by yard saling together, and we found a great pattern and material for making ballerina bunnies. We brought it all home and said, we can make this! This will be great! I had a daughter in ballet at the time and Debbie was a dancer when she was younger, so since we were both familiar with different ballets, we started making different characters like Herr Drosselmejer and Clara from the ‘Nutcracker.’ That’s how it started. The jellies came later.”
Today Cranberry Harvest offers flavors ranging from cranberry apricot jelly and cranberry orange marmalade to the more exotic white cranberry pepper and cranberry pepper garlic jellies.
“For a while we were coming up with a new flavor each year,” says Grenier. “Last September we came up with white cranberry pepper garlic, which was our new flavor for that years Cranberry Festival. It’s a great place to debut new flavors, because we get a lot of feedback from the festival goers, and they’re expecting that new flavor. We may still come up with a new one for this year—there’s a few weeks left. Anything could happen!”
How exactly does one eat the cranberry pepper garlic jelly? Grenier recommends trying atop cream cheese on a cracker as an appetizer, or using while cooking pork, chicken, baked Brie or kielbasa.
“The white cranberry pepper garlic one is really good on oysters on the half shell,” she says. “When we did the Oyster Festival last year, I tried it and took it to the guys shucking oysters. It was great. They loved it.”
Although the business continues to grow—Grenier and Labossiere cooked up over 700 pounds of red cranberries alone last year—the two are determined to keep the business at home and in the family, at least for now.
“We do have a friend who keeps encouraging us each year to make the leap and get a factory and a warehouse, but we’re just not ready for that,” says Grenier. “I have a four year old and my youngest son is two, and to try and do all that, it just isn’t suitable right now.”
For now, the two friends cook jellies and marmalades in Grenier’s kitchen, wrangling their total of eight children as they work, for two or three eight-hour days during the slow part of the year. In busier times they work four days a week.
“The kids have always helped out since the time they could walk. But now the older ones can sometimes do a smaller show for us, like at the senior center or something, and it’s kind of nice,” says Labossiere. “And they seem to enjoy it as well. It gives them experience dealing with people, and working around money, and having to be pleasant. Debbie and I know we could not do this without the help of family and friends. We get a lot of it. The two of us are very fortunate. We have a lot of friends on the Cape, and the family contributes a lot—they come when we’re in desperate need! Debbie’s parents will come all the way from New Jersey, and you’ll see them at the Cranberry Festival. They always come and help us out, because it’s one of our biggest shows of the year. And they love coming, too. They love being here.”
Greniere and Labossiere also credit the hard work and generosity of local Cape Cod growers and retailers for their success.
“Paul Luciano is a cranberry grower who has been a huge supporter of ours right from the beginning,” says Labossiere. “Ray Thatcher is another cranberry grower who has really helped us out. And Don Antonellis, the manager at the Harwich Port Shaw’s, is a great guy. We asked him who to go to, to get our jellies onto the shelves at Shaw’s, and he took the samples and called every Shaw’s manager on Cape Cod. So now we are in all six stores on the Cape. He always asks us how it’s going. He’s been wonderful. It’s people like that who have helped us move along.”
Look for Grenier and Labossiere’s Cranberry Harvest jellies at their booth at the Harwich Cranberry Festival the weekend of Sept. 15. Cranberry Harvest products are available locally at Stop & Shop, Shaw’s and many local retailers, as well as online.
“We’d also like to mention that at our Cranberry Festival booth we will be selling tickets to benefit Angel’s Hope for the Evening of Giving at the Cape Cod Mall,” adds Grenier. “Tina and I have been involved in Angel’s Hope for a long time, and I’m on the board of directors. We hope that our customers will consider picking up a ticket or two to support a wonderful organization that benefits children living with cancer and their families as they pick up their cranberry jelly this year.”
For more information about Cranberry Harvest and their products, visit www.cranberryharvest.com. For more information about Angel’s Hope, or to make a contribution, go to www.angelshope.org.