In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Kevin Hamilton, vice president of global marketing for USHBC. Hamilton has over 20 years of marketing experience with a number of brands and commodities, and is bringing that expertise to the blueberry industry. In this episode, Hamilton and Cronquist discuss the current state of blueberry marketing promotion programs and the opportunities ahead to empower the industry to make blueberries the world’s favorite fruit. 

“ The notion of 'world's favorite fruit' … favorite is an adjective that is associated with a point of view; with an attitude inside a person's mind. We're not going to get there just trying to sell blueberries. We're not going to get to that notion of favorite fruit. We need to impact how people think about that fruit as they're buying it. Think about that fruit as they're consuming it, right? We need to merge that with the market side of things.” - Kevin Hamilton

Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to Hamilton and his new role with USHBC. 
• What Hamilton brings to the blueberry industry based on his background in  consumer packaged goods (CPG), his role with Avocados from Mexico and other marketing roles. 
• The importance of data and understanding the consumer’s thought process in global marketing efforts.
• The barriers and opportunities ahead for growing the volume and value of blueberries globally.

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Lisa Coleman, director of healthy living for Giant Food, which includes 166 supermarkets in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Washington, D.C. As the leader of Giant's Healthy Living Team of credentialed nutrition professionals, Coleman helps guide an inclusive, all-foods-fit approach to educating and inspiring the community Giant serves through classes, store tours, workplace wellness programs, cook-alongs, social media engagement and a biweekly podcast, “Healthy Living by Giant.”

“We have this kind of rallying cry that health is for everyone. It doesn't have to be exclusive or expensive. We really like to show people that there's healthy foods in every aisle of our stores and healthy living isn't perfect. It's not all or nothing. It's about the little things that you do everyday that support your health.” - Lisa Coleman

Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to Coleman and her role with Giant Food. 
• An exploration of Coleman’s journey from in-store nutritionist to head of health strategy and health initiatives.
• A discussion of the partnerships, collaborations and projects Giant Food is pursuing to spread the healthy eating, healthy living message. 
• A look at food and produce prescriptions, and the impact they have on grocery purchases. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Ross Peterson, the newly appointed director of finance at USHBC. Peterson explains how the USHBC is funded, the assessment process and some changes that are underway. 

“I get to hear life experiences. I get to hear how businesses are being run. It gives me a great insight as to what's happening in the industry. … I get to hear a lot of really fun stories in the mix of answering questions on how to fill out a form. … We get to spend a lot of time talking about families and kids and what it's like to transition a farm from generation to generation to generation.” - Ross Peterson

 Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to Peterson and role at USHBC. 
• His journey from other prominent industries to the blueberry industry.
• The value of the assessment process and how it will impact producers in the coming year.

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from Alan Schreiber in Washington and Luis Vegas in Peru. This was recorded on September 20, 2023. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Luis Vegas, general manager of Proarandanos, the Peruvian Blueberry Growers & Exporters Association. What started as a promising year for production in Peru has turned into an unpredictable reversal of forecasts. In this episode, we contextualize what’s happening there to better understand what this means for Peruvian blueberry stakeholders.  

“El Niño phenomenon sometimes can have a global impact, but also sometimes can have a more regional impact. And in this case, it's more of a regional impact of El Niño, which is causing us to have warmer temperatures in the ocean. It's causing us to have warmer temperatures in the atmosphere. … The variety that is being more affected by this warmer weather, it's a variety called Ventura. It's the variety that has the largest acreage here in Peru. So in Peru there's approximately 6,000 hectares of Ventura, the variety that is being more affected, and this affects directly Peru's volumes.” - Luis Vegas

 Topics covered include: 

• Reconnecting with Vegas and his work at Proarandanos.
• The impact weather has had on blueberry production this year and what it could mean for future blueberry seasons in Peru.
• Why Vegas is optimistic about the future of blueberry production and varieties in Peru.

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from T.J. Hafner in Oregon, Jason Smith in British Columbia and Mario Ramirez in Mexico. This was recorded on September 13, 2023. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Rod Borden and Ben Bowditch of Lunds & Byerlys. Borden is the director of produce and Bowditch is the produce category manager for the grocery retailer that has 28 stores in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. Tune in to hear how National Blueberry Month and our power periods help keep blueberries top of mind with consumers thanks to support from retailers like Lunds & Byerlys. 

“Our berry category runs about 18% of our distribution of our department, so it is by far our No. 1 category. When you talk about the berry piece of our business, it undoubtedly is the most important business that drives not only our quality perception, but I would say for us sales. ” – Rod Borden

 Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to Borden and Bowditch, and Lunds & Byerlys. 
• An exploration of the blueberry industry from the retailer’s perspective.
• Partnerships retailers can offer to producers. 

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from Jason Smith in British Columbia, T.J. Hafner in Oregon, Alan Schrieber in Washington, Brody Schropp in Michigan and Mario Ramirez in Mexico. This was recorded on September 7, 2023. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Amanda Griffin, our VP of Industry Engagement and Education and Dr. Jennifer McEntire, founder of Food Safety Strategies.  Amanda is leading our BerrySmart platform and helping us better address and provide leadership and resources for issues like food safety within our industry. In her more than 20 years in the industry, McEntire has become one of the most highly respected leaders in food safety, providing insights and guidance to member companies, regulatory partners and policy makers.

“The best thing I think we can do is teach people how to think about food safety risks, how to have an awareness and be able to make informed decisions when environments do change, when things are changing, and at least have that ability to ask the question, is this changing my food safety risk profile? To at least keep food safety part of the conversation and not allow for complacency. ” - Dr. Jennifer McEntire

 Topics covered include: 

• Join Amanda Griffin, our VP of Industry Engagement and Education and Dr. Jennifer McEntire, founder of Food Safety Strategies
• Explore food safety resources available to blueberry stakeholders 

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from Luis Vegas in Peru, T.J. Hafner in Oregon, Jason Smith in British Columbia and Mario Ramirez in Mexico. This was recorded on August 23, 2023. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Peter McPherson, general manager, Berry Category International, for Costa Group. For the first time in four years, the International Blueberry Organization was able to bring together blueberry industry stakeholders from around the world for a summit recently. McPherson shares his insights and experiences from the summit held in Poland this summer. 

“Poland, this year, I think provides the best outline of all the activities that the blueberry industry needs to look at. All the challenges, where we are today, where we need to go, how we stack up in the berry business, and I think that was one of the underlying positives that came out.” - Peter McPherson

 Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to McPherson and his work.
• A discussion of McPherson’s insights and experiences from this summer’s International Blueberry Organization’s Summit.
• A review of recent updates from Poland and Ukraine, and blueberry growth in that region.

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from TJ Havner in Oregon, Brody Shcropp in Michigan, Jason Smith in British Columbia and Luis Vegas in Peru. This was recorded on August 16, 2023. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Brandon Casteel, SPINS vice president of channel and retail partnerships, and Joe Vargas, USHBC/NABC director of business intelligence. Last year's attitudes and usage study found that growers and retailers could benefit from more detailed blueberry sales information. This led USHBC to make the strategic decision to switch from Nielson to SPINS data. With the new SPINS contract, USHBC gets an improved understanding of blueberry sales performance in grocery retail relative to other produce items by pack-size, by brand and measured by household buying rate and volume. 

“SPINS is a syndicated data provider. That's kind of fancy words for saying we track what is selling across hundreds of thousands of grocery stores all over the United States. … And then once we get that data, we're not done there, we add literally thousands of attributes on top of that information so that everyone can get smarter about what's on shelf, not just the retailers, but also the manufacturers, and then really everybody in the ecosystem.” - Brandon Casteel

 Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to Casteel and Vargas.
• A discussion of the value SPINS offers blueberry producers.
• An explanation of the added insights SPINS provides and details on how blueberry stakeholders can access the data. 

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from Jason Smith in British Columbia, Pat Goin in Indiana, Broady Schropp in Michigan, TJ Hafner in Oregon, and Alan Schreiber in Washington. This was recorded on August 9, 2023. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by two blueberry growers who are also members of our USHBC BerrySmart Technology Task Force: Paul Macrie of Macrie Bros. Blueberry Farms and Noel Sakuma of Sakuma Brothers. One of the highlights of The Blueberry Convention last February was showcasing the new technologies being developed for blueberry growers. Together, these industry stakeholders share their perspectives on upcoming technology for blueberry producers. 

“As far as technologies and groups of people kind of coming together to make positive change for our industry, I would say the pollination category is doing a very good job at seeing the problems that are here and kind of trying to address them. … I think that we really need to figure out how to get them into fields and get people to get firsthand access to the technology, and to get researchers more involved with this whole project.” - Noel Sakuma

 Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to Macrie and Sakuma. 
• A discussion of the advances being explored on BerrySmart Farms. 
• A look at the topics being addressed by the BerrySmart Technology Task Force. 

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from TJ Hafner in Oregon, Jason Smith in British Columbia and Brody Schropp in Michigan. This was recorded on August 2, 2023. 

In this episode of “The Business of Blueberries,” host Kasey Cronquist, president of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council (USHBC) and the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), is joined by Brian Bocock, a Michigan blueberry grower and the vice president of product management at Naturipe Farms. Bocock also serves as vice chair of the USHBC Promotion Committee. We’ve made it an annual tradition to talk to Bocock and get his analysis and outlook on the blueberry market. Listeners may remember him from Episode 002, Episode 046 and Episode 097. Joining Bocock and Cronquist is Grant Prentice, director of strategic insights at Padilla FoodMinds. Prentice has been an instrumental partner on many USHBC strategic initiatives, and offers great insight into our efforts to drive demand today and into the future. 

“As part of the Promotion Committee, one thing that we have focused on in July with retail, is doing some retail promotions to really help drive awareness in store in the consumer's face at the point of purchase time. …So that's a big deal over the next three or four weeks. I think that this is going to be the most critical point of the summer for domestic producers.” - Brian Bocock

 Topics covered include: 

• An introduction to Bocock and Prentice.
• A review of the USHBC Promotion Committee's efforts to promote blueberries during National Blueberry Month.
• A glimpse into the future promotional opportunities the industry is preparing to pursue.

Crop Report

The Blueberry Crop Report is an update on crop conditions and markets throughout important blueberry growing areas. Today you’ll hear from Pat Goin in Indiana, Jason Smith in British Columbia, Alan Schreiber in Washington, TJ Hafner in Oregon and Brody Schropp in Michigan. This was recorded on July 27, 2023.