Acting Gov. Nick Scutari signed several pieces of legislation into law on Monday, including one that makes cranberry juice the official state juice.
The bill to designate cranberry juice as the state juice was introduced by lawmakers who made a persuasive argument about why it should be the state juice.
According to the introduced legislation, later passed in the Legislature, “a fruit native to North America, the cranberry grows on an evergreen shrub that thrives in wet areas, such as bogs or wetlands; and the history of cranberries predates the arrival of the first European settlers in the Western Hemisphere as cranberries were a staple of the diets of Native-Americans. The Lenni Lenape people from southern New Jersey harvested wild cranberries and used the fruit in a variety of remedies, foods, and drinks.
It goes on: “In New Jersey, commercial cranberry farming began in 1835 in a bog in Burlington County and New Jersey is now the third largest cranberry producing state in the United States. Records indicate that cranberries sold for as much as $50 a barrel in the 1840s when merchants sold cranberries to sailors who consumed the fruit for its high Vitamin C content to help ward off scurvy.
“In 1912, Elizabeth Lee of New Jersey was one of the first people to create jellied cranberry sauce from the berries and later joined forces with other farmers to start the company that became known as Ocean Spray, famous for its bottled cranberry juice.
“Research indicates that cranberry juice is full of nutrients that may have significant health benefits by boosting the immune system.
“New Jersey does not have a state juice and it is fitting and proper to formally recognize the significance of cranberries to the history and culture of our State and its people by designating cranberry juice as the State juice.”