Bordentown City struggling with Ocean Spray's move

In Bordentown City, known for its popular cranberry festival, the decision by Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. to move its plant to Pennsylvania, far from the bogs, has left a bitter aftertaste.

"I don't know what we're going to call the festival now - the 'apple pie'?" Mayor Jim Lynch said sarcastically, following the farm cooperative's recent announcement that it would relocate its juice processing and bottling operation to the Lehigh Valley.

Nearly $40 million in tax breaks, grants, and low-interest loans were offered by state and local agencies to get Ocean Spray to stay, say government officials.

Though 26 Ocean Spray cranberry growers will continue to harvest in New Jersey, the loss of the facility is a blow to the state, which under the Christie administration has promoted itself as business-friendly, say officials in Trenton and Bordentown. The company's flight has sparked a rallying cry among some New Jersey legislators who say that high energy taxes are behind Ocean Spray's decision, though the company has not cited those taxes as a reason for leaving.

"At a time when New Jersey's economy is struggling to rebound, especially in the manufacturing sector, we must improve our business climate," Assemblyman Domenick DiCicco Jr. (R., Gloucester) said Monday.

For 68 years, Ocean Spray has been a major presence in Bordentown. The processing plant produces about 30 million cases of cranberry juice a year, about a third of Ocean Spray's output.

By September 2013, the 500,000 square-foot-brick plant on the outskirts of the quaint downtown will close. A task force is being created to attract new business to the area, Lynch said.

The facility - not up for sale at this time - employs 250 people, a company spokesman said. Ocean Spray sponsors a festival that attracts as many as 15,000 people each October, donates juice for various local fund-raising events, and until now has kept up relations with the town of 4,000 residents.

Ocean Spray shocked workers when it revealed with little notice that it planned to build a $120 million operation at an unspecified location near Allentown. The Bordentown plant was a symbol of one of the state's leading agricultural industries and a major employer in the region.