At the start of last year’s Perennial Farm Gathering, perennial berry researcher Lily Hislop hosted a workshop for people who are using perennial ingredients to make and market a variety of beverages. In the introduction to the workshop, Lily said, “Beverages are kind of like the stars in the sky, or a beautiful painting on the wall. They don’t necessarily serve any utilitarian purpose, but they add so much joy and sparkle to the world.”
Beverages can also be a great entry point for introducing people to new flavors and food ingredients, and a way to sell perennial fruits or nuts as a high value product. In the latest episode of the Perennial AF podcast, we hear from a number of different people who are making and marketing perennial beverages.
Links:
Recipe: Black currant leaf drink
Recipe: Homemade elderberry syrup (can be added to seltzers)
Stan Frankenthaler: This won’t necessarily happen in a linear fashion, right? It comes back to starting with quality raw materials. We can’t get with the biggest players first. We’re definitely wanting to source and utilize fruit from our Midwestern growers and US growers and try our best to avoid being taken over or having our innovations fueled by imports. We really want to help our farmers here and gain a foothold in the marketplace. I mean, a lot of the products have low awareness. Certainly, elderberry is growing in awareness, especially for its health benefits. Black currants have a culinary history. They can kind of pull things along. I love honeyberries – I think they need no marketing. They have the best name in the world.
In 2023, non-alcoholic beverages in the U.S. sold $212 billion in sales. And functional beverages are an important subcategory of that, but water is the biggest category, the biggest subcategory within beverages. And Derek [Nedveck] touched on how many steps it takes to work in the alcohol space. So we’re setting that kind of as a secondary target. We don’t necessarily want to get embroiled in all that registration and regulation right off the bat. We think there’s a lot of opportunity across the different beverages. Ready-to-drink teas and lemonades and sparkling waters – these companies are always looking for new flavors. That’s what drives sales, right?
I believe there’s a lot of growers who really just want to focus on growing, and that’s what they’re really good at, and don’t necessarily have the opportunity to wear all those hats. So hopefully we can work on their behalf as well, and end up with not only products or finished goods that are delicious and reflective of the hard work that they put into it, but also tell the story that everybody wants to hear.
Meet the Host
