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Juicy facts about the Commonwealth’s biggest crop

There are lots of reasons why cranberry is the Massachusetts state color.

Shutterstock/AlexussK

> Fun fact — Fresh cranberries bounce

> 4,400 — Number of cranberries needed for a gallon of juice

> 200 — Average number in a 14-oz. can of sauce

> $99.8 million — The total value of the Massachusetts cranberry production in 2012

> 400 million — Pounds of cranberries that Americans consume annually

> 1 — Rank of cranberries among the Commonwealth's food crops

> 2 — Rank of Massachusetts among cranberry-growing states (after Wisconsin)

> 47 square miles — The size of all the cranberry bogs in North America put together (about the size of Nantucket, which itself has two operating cranberry bogs totaling 232 acres)

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> 13,500 — Acres of commercial cranberry bogs in Massachusetts

> 1816 — Year believed to have seen the first commercial cranberry harvest, in Dennis

> 15 — Percentage of the world's cranberries grown in this state

> 20 — Percentage of those pounds eaten Thanksgiving week

> 60 — Percentage of Americans who couldn't imagine their Thanksgiving without cranberry sauce

"I used to date the lead singer of The Cranberries, but she cheated on me. Turns out she had some turkey on the side."  — Jarod Kintz

SOURCES: oceanspray.com, Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association, Nantucket Conservation Foundation

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