According to reports, AG Thames subsidiary CPM Retail has been growing an antioxidant-rich berry in the UK and Poland despite the fact that haskap, also known as the blue honeysuckle, is not yet recognized as a food in the EU.
Consequently most of the fruit has so-far been sold in Canada. “In the U.K. it’s treated like a novel food, like a berry that doesn’t exist,” says CPM berry division supply chain director Rachel Montague-Ebbs.
The fruit, which originally comes from Japan and eastern Russia looks like an elongated blueberry with a flavour which is described as being similar to a mixture of raspberry and elderflower.
“It’s got twice as many antioxidants as wild blueberries and three times as much iron so it’s really popular in the health conscious countries,” added Rachel. “We’re trying to sell it in Japan where it’s already grown and we’ve been trying to sell it to other countries while we get this novel food status in the UK to sell it there.”
Photo Credit: CPM Retail