Wild blueberries juice up Canada's exports

Michel Baril (third from right), the second-generation grower who owns 200 acres of wild blueberry lands in St-Felicien, Quebec, poses with his family and visitors at his farm, ready to harvest. PHOTOS BY NA LI / CHINA DAILY

One of the success stories on the processing side is that of Matthew Bragg, vice-president of sales and marketing at Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd, whose family business is part of the C$100 million wild blueberry industry in Nova Scotia.

Started by his father John Bragg in 1968, the family business now can process up to 1.5 million pounds of frozen blueberries and byproducts per day.

"We have been freezing Canadian wild blueberries for exports over the past 49 years. We sell to over 30 countries around the world, including the US, Japan and Europe, and more recently, China," Bragg said.

Like many other wild blueberry business owners in Nova Scotia, Bragg's company is increasingly looking to expand to China due to surpluses, high production costs and competition in Canada.

"We worked on Chinese e-commerce site JD.com to promote our products both online and offline in China. We chose to launch Canadian wild blueberries in China on Canada Day on July 1 recently," Bragg recalled.

During the harvesting season, which started in mid-August, the frozen berries are shipped in containers from Oxford to the Port of Halifax, where they set sail to ports in Tianjian and Shanghai, and retail partners like JD.com accept deliveries.

"We visited big companies in China from time to time with government missions, and in return, they came here to know what wild blueberries were and decided to buy blueberries and other products like seafood," said Bragg, who has traveled to China six times.

In neighbouring Prince Edward Island (PEI), Jasper Wyman & Son is another frozen wild blueberry company that was established in 1874 in the US and expanded its Canadian facilities in 2014.

Homer Woodward, the company's vice-president of operations, said they are further tapping into the Chinese market.

"We are presently selling blueberries all over the world and are looking forward to developing some partnerships with Chinese companies," Woodward said. "We received lots of assistance from the Canadian government in developing our foreign trade."

Wade Dover, the company's general manager, said the PEI facilities have improved their processing and distribution technology.

"We'd love to be able to sell more of the best wild blueberries to China. We know there is a high demand for quality Canadian products, and we are ready to expand into new markets and take on new customers," Dover said, adding that he hopes "what we bring to the table would lead to more people wanting to buy our wild blueberries".

Bleuet Nordic is a wild blueberry supplier of infused and dried wild blueberry, based in the Lac-Saint-Jean region - the heart of the industry in Quebec.

Starting from the fields to the freezers to dehydration processing, the company's president Mario Bussire said it is fully confident it can sell its products to the world.

"We are very interested in the Chinese market, and we are going to work with our partners to promote our products in China," he said.

Founded in 1984, Quebec Wild Blueberries has worked in close collaboration with China since 2009.

"We've been selling to China for about eight years, and I've been to China five times over the past few years," said Jean-Pierre Senneville, president of the company.

"We sell mostly to the business segments, such as food preparation makers, the yogurt makers and the jam manufacturers. We are happy to see the growing demand from China."