You may not have heard of this berry, but these Victorian farmers are determined to change that

Karen van Huizen is used to having purple-stained hands.

For the last seven years, she and her husband Paul have been growing elderberries in Victoria’s Indigo Valley.

With its candy-coloured stems, snow-like flowers and tiny purple fruit, the elderberry plant is native to Europe and North America.

Today elderberry can be found in everything from cordial to cosmetics due to its high levels of anthocyanins — the antioxidants which give the berries their intense purple pigment.

But Ms van Huizen — who now sells elderberry products at farmers markets across north-east Victoria — says most Australians have never heard of it.

She says their customers often mention the Elton John song Elderberry Wine, but that’s as far as their knowledge goes.

“Whereas the Europeans and the Scandinavians will flock to us, often using their country’s traditional name for it, such as holunder in German,” Ms van Huizen said.

Discovering elderberry

The van Huizens themselves discovered elderberries by chance.

“My mum and dad were travelling in Canada and rang to say they’d just had this amazing yoghurt with elderberry,” Ms van Huizen said.

“And when I read the flowers are traditionally used for springtime allergies and the berries for flu symptoms, I thought, ‘Why aren’t we growing this here?'”

According to the University of Missouri, the global elderberry market is worth an estimated $US320 million per year.

And Ms van Huizen says this figure could nearly double.

“The global industry is supposed to grow by $US264 million in the next five years,” she said.

That’s equivalent to nearly $AU400 million.

“So it’s a huge market, and I’m wondering how can we tap into that.”

Currently all the elderberry products sold in the major Australian supermarkets are imported.

Anthony Jacobs, from Elderberry Australia — an initiative of sustainable ingredient supplier Green Blue Health — says the vast majority of those products come from Europe.

“Most of the pharmaceutical grade Haschberg variety is grown in Austria’s Graz region, to be used in supplements,” he said.

“Ukraine and Hungary supply wild-picked varieties to be made into juice concentrate colouring agents, because they vary in quality.”

But Mr Jacobs says he and his group are investing in a homegrown elderberry industry.

“We’re working with labs and universities to promote elderberry education through research,” he said.

Growing pains

Ms van Huizen says there’s only a handful of Australian elderberry growers, with the largest being Ashbolt Farm in Tasmania.

“Anytime I find one [elderberry grower] I’ll give them a call, and I’m working with one or two to see how we might build the industry.”

But Ms van Huizen says the lack of local cultivars — varieties bred specifically for Australian conditions — remains a challenge.

“We’ve put in a lot of plants and pulled a lot out … but we consider ourselves a trial site so we’re still doing plenty of research,” she said.

According to Mr Jacobs, elderberry production is a labour-intensive crop.

“It’s a very hardy plant as it grows well with average to limited rainfall, and survives low temperatures,” he said.

“But the biggest obstacle for farmers is the need to manually harvest the berries and flowers.”

What to ‘adapt or adopt’

Ms van Huizen knows growing elderberry takes effort.

“I would spend seven hours picking and de-stemming a seven-kilogram bucket of berries if I did it all by hand,” she said.

But Ms van Huizen says technology will make all the difference for future growers.

“My husband Paul made a little machine to use on our farm, which means I can now do those seven kilos in an hour,” she said.

“And in the US they’ve developed machinery to process 100 kilograms in an hour, because otherwise it would be too expensive and unviable.”

Ms van Huizen — whose day job is in emergency management — says this makes elderberry a promising diversification option for Australian producers.

“We also run sheep so when lamb prices were down to around $3 a kilo last year, farmers like us had a lot to lose,” she said.

“However, if we grow a secondary or tertiary crop like elderberries, that’s a good source of supplementary income.”

But Ms van Huizen says educating farmers — as well as consumers — is key.

“We need a lot more research and investment, so we can tell growers what cultivars are suitable for what industries … whether it be food, cosmetics, alcohol et cetera,” she said.

“And our elderberry products can be used in smoothies, on ice-cream, as a salad dressing.