Haskap berries, also known as edible honeysuckle, blue honeysuckle and honeyberry, are not very well known in Canada, as they have traditionally only been found sporadically in the wild, growing mostly on the edge of wetlands. Yet, the berries might be the next superfood, and are being championed by Bob Bors, the head of the fruit program at the University of Saskatchewan who has been breeding haskap berries for 15 years.
The plants are being grown in most provinces now, with more than two million sold, “which is pretty big for any plant breeding program,” says Bors.
The taste is distinct, says Alain Bosse, the Kilted Chef who promotes Maritime cuisine.
“It’s got this raspberry, wild blueberry sort of undertone and then all of a sudden there’s that Honeycrisp (apple),” Bosse says from Pictou County, N.S. “It’s got that real funky flavour profile,” which he likens to bumbleberry, or mixed-berry pie.”
Liam Tayler, commercial director of Haskapa in Nova Scotia, says the company started with an acre of haskap plants in 2011 and has added more each year. Forty acres are nearing production and they plan to plant another 80 acres this year.
Being a small company, they currently freeze the berries for use in products that are sold in their retail store in Mahone Bay, N.S., as well as online.
Tayler says Haskapa is working with Dalhousie University’s agricultural experts in Truro, N.S., to optimize processing techniques to maximize the bioactive content of the products. One of Bors’s doctoral students is also conducting research on the nutritional composition of the haskap.
“It is a fruit that makes a wine more like grape wine than any other fruit, so people in the far north like Saskatchewan, we can’t really grow any wine grapes here, but you can grow haskap to make a nice wine or liqueur,” says Bors.
“Quantities are not that high yet. (Haskapa are) still using pretty well everything they’re producing in value-added products,” says Bosse. “I think when production gets to the point where they can start selling them fresh, or even dry or frozen, the product’s going to definitely take off.”
Source: globalnews.ca
