Why We Grow American Elderberry
We didn't start out making our syrup with our American elderberries.
We started pretty much the way most elderberry syrup makers do.
With dehydrated European elderberries.
They were inexpensive, easy to find, and easy to store. And when Popple Tree Creek Farms was basically me making syrup for friends and family, they did the job.
But then we started making a lot more syrup.
And the more berries I bought, the more I started paying attention to exactly what I was buying.
That's ultimately what sent us down the road to growing our own American elderberry.
Today, we grow Sambucus canadensis here on our farm in northern Minnesota, have nearly 30 named varieties in the ground, and source additional American elderberries from growers we can actually know.
Getting from there to here taught me a lot about what the word “elderberry” does (and doesn't) tell you.
This Whole Thing Started With a Few Plants in Our Yard
Before Popple Tree Creek Farms existed, we already had a few elderberry plants at home. I'd gotten them through a Soil and Water Conservation District tree sale several years earlier and planted them in our yard.
Then 2020 happened.
I was working as a corporate safety manager, mostly from home, and I had considerably more time on my hands than usual. I started reading about different approaches to health and wellness, and elderberry kept coming up.
Then I remembered: Hey, I've got elderberries.
So we made syrup and we really liked it.
But then we ran out of berries, and that's when I started buying dehydrated European elderberries.
We made syrup for ourselves. Then family. Then friends.
Somebody would try a bottle and tell somebody else, and suddenly that person wanted one too.
Eventually I was announcing on Facebook that I'd be in a Target parking lot at a certain time and meeting people there with bottles of elderberry syrup.
I was thinking of myself as the underground elderberry supplier of Clearwater County, Minnesota.
It felt slightly sketchy.
And eventually I figured I should probably get a license.
The More We Grew, the More I Wanted to Know About the Berries
The European berries were convenient, especially for a tiny operation, but as we started ordering more, I began noticing inconsistencies I didn't like.
We rejected shipments because of mold.
I'd open bags and find dirt in the bottom.
One moment that really stuck with me was peeling off a sticker showing the current harvest year and finding another harvest-year sticker underneath it.
At some point, you start asking more questions.
How old are these berries?
Where exactly were they grown?
How were they handled?
How were they dried?
Who grew them?
I didn't have good answers.
And that changed the way I thought about what I wanted in an elderberry ingredient.
“Organic” Wasn't Enough Information for Me Anymore
A lot of imported European elderberries are sold as certified organic.
The problem is that the United States and European Union have different organic standards, but they also have an equivalence agreement that allows qualifying EU-certified organic products to be sold as organic in the United States.
So seeing “organic” on an imported ingredient doesn't necessarily mean it was grown under the exact same certification system as an American crop.
So when you buy an "organic" elderberry syrup from a busness that uses imported European elderberries, there is no way to know if those berries were just growing on the side of the busy road with who-knows what chemicals on it, or it it's more pure.
And even more importantly for me, organic certification didn't tell me how old my particular berries were, how carefully they had been handled, how they had been dried or why I was finding dirt in a bag.
Those were the things I was seeing with my own eyes.
And traceability matters even more when you look at what's been found in the broader elderberry market.
Researchers have documented adulteration in commercial European elderberry extracts and supplements. In one study of 31 dietary supplements labeled as containing European elderberry, more than 60% had anthocyanin profiles that differed significantly from authentic elderberry, indicating adulteration with ingredients including black rice, purple carrot and elderflower.
Yep. 60% stuff other than elderberries. That was worrisome to me.
Now that doesn't necessarily mean every imported European elderberry ingredient has a quality problem, but I wanted to know more about ours than what was printed on the bag.
At the time, we were taking a berry that had already been harvested, dried, packaged, shipped across the world and stored, then rehydrating it so we could process it again into syrup.
And that is how most elderberry syrups are made. Most use imported dehydrated European elderberries, often in powder or reconstituted into something "syrup-like" to add to their recipes.
But I didn't want to do that. I no longer trusted the supply source itself.
So I eventually I decided I wanted to start with the pure fruit by growing it myself.
So We Planted American Elderberries
In 2021, I bought 1,740 American elderberry cuttings.
I didn't actually have anywhere to plant an acre of elderberries when I bought them.
Details.
I had a couple possibilities involving other people's property, but neither was ideal. Then a piece of land near our home came up for sale that February.
So we bought it, closed in March, and planted in April.
And then Minnesota had an extreme drought.
Almost all of them died.
Today, I think I can find three or four plants left from that original 1,740.
That wasn't exactly how I pictured becoming an elderberry farmer.
But we put in irrigation, replanted and kept going.
Today there are more than 5,000 elderberry plants on the farm.
“American Elderberry” Isn't Just One Plant, Either
One of the things I've become fascinated by as a grower is how much variation exists within American elderberry itself.
We're growing Sambucus canadensis, but within that species we have nearly 30 named varieties. And most named American elderberry varieties weren't created in some elaborate breeding program. Many are wild selections.
At some point, somebody found an elderberry growing in the wild that had desirable characteristics, watched it, propagated it and eventually gave that selection a name.
And finding a really good one isn't as simple as finding a plant with lots of berries.
For commercial production, one of the things that matters tremendously is how evenly the cluster ripens.
A healthy elderberry cluster can get about the size of a dinner plate.
That sounds great.
Unless only 30% of the berries are perfectly ripe while the rest are still green.
You can't efficiently harvest that cluster, so growers pay attention to things like growth habit, yield, berry production, ripening and how a variety performs in a particular region.
And that last part matters more than I realized when I started.
A Great Variety Somewhere Else May Be Terrible Here
American elderberries are very regional. I can take a named variety that's a fantastic producer for another farmer, put it into our northern Minnesota soil and watch it struggle.
Meanwhile, another variety planted nearby may thrive.
That's why I put so many varieties in the ground. Because I wanted options!
We're four or five years into watching them now, and we're starting to identify our winners and losers.
I'm looking at which ones survive our winters.
Which ones tolerate our heavier soil.
Which ones grow well.
Which ones produce well.
Which ones ripen in a way that works with our short growing season.
Eventually the goal is to stop spending time on plants that don't want to grow here and propagate more of the ones that do.
That's something I never could have learned from a bag of dried imported berries.
Growing Elderberries Changed the Way I Look at an Elderberry Product
When I started making syrup, an elderberry was basically an ingredient.
Now I look at it like a farmer.
I want to know the species, the variety, where it grew, when it was harvested, how it was handled, and what happened between the field and the finished ingredient.
And I think consumers deserve to be able to ask those questions too.
We've written much more about the actual differences researchers have found between American and European elderberry, including differences in their anthocyanin profiles, in Not All Elderberry Is the Same.
That's where I'd send you if you want the science behind the species.
But the biggest reason I choose to grow American elderberries here on my farm is to that I can trust the entire process and product.
No more questioning the contents of what I'm getting imported. No more compromising quality for convenience and cost.
I want to make the absolute best product out there. And I believe that I do!
We Don't Grow Every Berry in Your Bottle
Popple Tree Creek Farms has more than 5,000 plants, but our business has grown faster than the amount of fruit our farm can produce.
We primarily use berries from our own farm, but we also harvest from other American elderberrry farms nearby.
I've realized that's probably always going to be part of our model.
And I'm good with that.
Because the important thing to me isn't being able to say every single berry grew within our property lines.
It's being able to know our supply chain.
I've walked the fields of the growers we currently buy from.
I've talked with them.
I've seen how they grow.
And I go out and harvest them myself.
So when we need additional supply, I can work through other local American elderberry growers and cooperatives and build relationships with the farms producing our fruit.
That is a very different relationship with your primary ingredient than ordering a bulk commodity whose path you can't see.
We're Still Farmers, Even as the Business Changes
I'll also tell you something we're thinking about right now.
Harvesting elderberries is hard.
Every elderberry cluster is currently harvested by hand. There isn't a reliable commercial mechanical harvester that has solved that problem yet.
As our business grows, we're constantly looking at where our farm fits best.
Maybe we grow fewer berries someday and more elderflowers.
Maybe we buy more berries directly from otther local American growers.
Maybe somebody finally invents the magical elderberry harvester everyone has been waiting for.
The business will keep changing.
But I don't see myself completely separating from growing elderberries.
I like being involved in it, because I need to trust the supply chain. And I can't do that by importing dried, processed berries from around the world.
And as someone making elderberry products, I think there's value in keeping my hands in the crop itself.
It's hard to think of “elderberry” as just another ingredient once you've spent years trying to keep 5,000 of the plants alive.
Start With the Berry
We talk a lot around here about knowing what is actually in an elderberry product.
How much elderberry does it contain?
Is it juice, powder, extract or concentrate?
Was water added?
Which species was used?
Where was it grown?
How was it processed?
And how much can you actually learn about where that ingredient came from?
For our products, we've decided the answer starts with American-grown Sambucus canadensis grown right here in northern Minnesota, processed ourselves, and turned into products we can feel proud to put our name on.
It's certainly not the easiest way we could source elderberry. But after seeing this ingredient from both sides, from opening bags of dried imported berries to walking through thousands of our own plants, I know which side I'd rather be on.
Sources:
U.S. -EU Equivalence Arrangement: Organic Trade Association. https://ota.com/resources/international-trade/trade-agreements/eu
BAPP Releases New Bulletin on Elderberry Adulteration: Nutra Ingredients. https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2023/06/23/BAPP-releases-new-bulletin-on-elder-berry-adulteration/
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