NEW YORK — For the eighth consecutive year, Ocean Spray has brought the bog to New York City.

The grower-owned cooperative based in Lakeville-Middleboro, MA, constructed a 1,500-square-foot cranberry bog filled with 2,000 pounds of fresh cranberries at the iconic Rockefeller Center, here, as a way to educate the public about cranberries and promote its products during the peak time of year for the fruit.

The two-day event, At an Oct. 16 cocktail party held in a cranberry bog constructed at New York City's iconic Rockefeller Center were Ken Romanzi (left), chief operating officer of Ocean Spray, with Diane Moss, a third-generation grower from Wisconsin; Heidi Slinkman, a fourth-generation grower from Wisconsin; and Gary Garretson, a fourth-generation grower from Massachusetts. (Photo by John Groh)held Oct. 16-17, featured a full slate of activities, including a cocktail reception the evening of Oct. 16, where guests donned waders and mingled in the bog while sipping cranberry cocktails and eating cranberry-based hors d'oeuvres.

In addressing guests, Ocean Spray Chief Operating Officer Ken Romanzi said, "Most people never get a chance to see a bog, so we bring it to them."

At the Oct. 16 reception, Ocean Spray debuted a short 3-D documentary film about the cranberry harvest, featuring Massachusetts cranberry grower Gary Garretson, who was in attendance.

In the film, Mr. Garretson and his crew are shown flooding their cranberry fields in preparation for the wet harvest, followed by the corralling of the fruit using rakes and booms, and pumping the fruit into waiting tractor-trailers. The fruit is then taken to a plant where it is washed and prepared for fresh packing.

Time is of the essence, Mr. Garretson explained in the film, as the longer the fruit remains in the water, the more chance there is for degradation of quality. As such, the harvesting crew works rapidly and efficiently, clearing the field in a matter of hours.

In a good year, growers will harvest 20,000 pounds of fruit per acre, said Mr. Garretson. Ocean Spray, which consists of nearly 700 grower-owners, produces 700 million pounds of cranberries each autumn.

Mr. Romanzi was quick to credit the grower-owners of the cooperative, and commended them for their dedication, hard work and use of technology to improve cranberry harvesting, which is hundreds of years old and can be traced back to Massachusetts, which he referred to as "the birthplace of cranberry harvesting."

"We have three growers here this evening, and they do an outstanding job," he said. "They deserve all the credit."