Epcot waist-deep with new cranberry bog

[Wendy]

There's a chance you could get bogged down at this year's Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. For the first time, a cranberry bog has been installed at Walt Disney World.

The area, set in the stretch that connects the theme park's Future World and World Showcase, is presented in partnership with Ocean Spray, which has been taking its display "Bogs Across America" on the road since 2005.

cranberry-bog-at-epcot.jpg

The idea is to share "nature's most beautiful harvest," says Ken Romanzi, Ocean Spray's chief operating officer, North America.

In real life, cranberries don't grow in water, Romanzi explains. At harvest time, the fields are flooded and special machines knock the berry off the plant. The cranberries, which have natural air pockets, float to the top and then are corralled for processing.

"A cranberry bog only looks like that for one or two days a year because it only takes one or two days to do that," Romanzi says.

Enter Disney magic, which will allow the bog display to be rich in color and real cranberries throughout the run of the Food & Wine Festival, which ends Nov. 13. The berries are expected to be OK in the water and Florida weather for 10 days to two weeks, Romanzi says.

"We'll change out those berries probably three times during that time frame to keep them fresh," he says.

Guests who attended opening weekend of the fest may have spotted genuine cranberry farmers standing in the bog.

"We use our growers to communicate with consumers," Romanzi says. "People love interacting with them, and they love the fact that they get to brag about what they've done and what their ancestors have done."

The growers have left because its cranberry-harvest season back home. Cranberries are grown in five states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Washington and Oregon. (Disney cast members will be stationed in the bog in lieu of growers.)

The bog display has visited New York City's Rockefeller Center annually since 2005 and has been to Chicago, Los Angeles and made a stop at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

"If people can't come to a cranberry harvest, we're going to bring it to them," Romanzi says.

[disney-fan]

living in Mass I have seen the bogs and them being harvested It is neat to see the machine stir up the water and get the berries free from the plants. Nice display

[Slowhand]

When I saw the title of this thread I thought "whatever have Disney done to the toilets!"
[For our American friends...."bog" is a slang word for a w.c.!]

[Tink]

LOL!

I saw this the first weekend. The cranberry growers were very proud of themselves for being at Disney! Neat!