Expanding Markets for Lesser Known Perennial Crops Through the Craft Beverage Industry

View the project final report

Commodities

• Fruits: apples, berries (brambles), berries (other), persimmon, plums, Seaberry, aronia, currants, elderberry, cornelian cherry, blackcaps, wild black cherry
• Additional Plants: herbs, native plants

Practices

• Crop Production: cropping systems, varieties and cultivars, suitability of uncommon crops
• Education and Training: focus group, networking, participatory research, workshop
• Farm Business Management: market study, value added

Uncommon perennial fruits and wild crafted products offer unique sustainability potential, but limited information about their potential uses makes them difficult crops to market.  This project evaluated the potential of 13 uncommon crops and wild crafted products for use in the craft beverage industry. The project’s experienced team of farmers and researchers developed test batches (approximately 50 gallons each) of hard cider-based products that incorporated blackcap, black cherry, black currant, cornelian cherry, elderberry, elderflower, highbush cranberry, persimmon, sapalta cherry plums, saskatoon, seaberry, wild bergamot, and wild blackberry.   

An estimated 1,000 consumers were able to try the ciders made with uncommon crops in the Brix Cider tasting room in Mount Horeb, WI.  Throughout the project we also did multiple social media posts about all of the different uncommon crops and the ciders that were made from them, and these educational posts reached over 5,000 people.  Brix Cider also surveyed customers to determine which ciders were the most popular, and we conducted a focus group tasting with craft beverage makers and farmers to evaluate and describe each of the ciders.   

Results of the study were then posted online at  https://brixcider.com/uncommon-crops-uncommon-beverages .  In addition to summary results, each crop was given its own page that included a background about the crop, information about growing for foraging the crop, notes on how the project cider was made, a description of the evaluation of the cider, and a conclusion about the overall potential of each crop for further use, particularly in the craft beverage industry.  In just a couple of days after posting the study, we saw over 300 visitors on the webpage, and we expect to see dozens of visitors per month in the years ahead based on traffic to other, similar pages on our website.

Based on the results of this study, we are planning to plant more of some of the successful crops in this coming spring planting season at the Brix Cider farm, and we expect to continue to work with Carandale Fruit Farm, some foraging partners, and other farms in sourcing more of the crops that we liked for making larger sized commercial batches of cider in the future.  We have already started doing larger batches of black currant cider (the most popular in our consumer tasting survey), and we forged a sourcing relationship with another local farm for larger quantities of black currants.  We hope that by sharing our results online that we will inspire other growers and craft beverage producers to experiment as well, using our work as a jumping off point.

The overall goal of this project was to assess the feasibility of expanding markets for 13 perennial crops and foraged plants through the craft beverage industry. Under this goal, we have the following objectives:

1. Produce 13X50 gallon test batches of hard cider that incorporate each the uncommon crops
2. Assess consumer perceptions of the finished products through consumer surveys
3. Conduct a focus group tasting evaluation to include craft beverage producers and farmers
4. Develop qualitative descriptions of challenges and opportunities related to each crop
5. Disseminate findings through online informational materials