Progress 07/01/23 to 12/20/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience is small to midsized wild blueberry growers in Downeast Maine who are currently facing pressure of selling or stopping producing wild blueberries because the cost to produce and harvest them exceeds the wholesale price per unit for the wild berries. Future efforts will share next phase research outcomes, and likely partner with the University of Maine for outreach efforts through the cooperative extension. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Wicked Wild, LLC partnered with two academic institutions to carry out this research. Each University offered training and professional development. At the University of Maine, the program manager of the food laboratory was able to work with a new food product grown and harvested in Maine; test and use a new piece of juicing equipment that can have other value-added applications, and develop future phases of this research and lessons learned from the methodology that can be applied to other food processing. At the University of Oregon, Food Innovation Center, Ann Colonna, Ph.D., worked with several graduate students who gained training and professional development in completing the IRB review and approval process, screening and selecting survey participants for the consumer preference testing, and running a blind preference test with touchscreen Compusense software. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The research outputs have been shared with research partners and subcontractors in this project. Wicked Wild would like to have more actionable information to share with the target audience before conducting wider reaching education and outreach. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Wicked Wild, LLC. pursued all three research objectives proposed in the original proposal. As expected with research initiatives, the process and the questions that the group was able to ask and answer differed slightly from the proposed approach, but the research outcomes advanced the pursuit of developing a value-added wild blueberry wellness product. The main takeaways are: Wild blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) do contain significantly more Anthocyanins and Antioxidant activity when compared to cultivated high-bush blueberry juice. Ultraviolet processed wild blueberry juice was preferred by consumers and described as sweet taste, fruity, simple, fresh blueberry, mild, fresh and floral. Wild blueberries were preferred over cultivated blueberries when considering a wellness shot for purchase. When branded as wild with nutritional information 63% of consumers tested would buy the UV processed juice. A recommended shelf life for the refrigerated product was determined to be 90 days. The internal cost-benefit analysis indicates that converting wild blueberries to a small value-added functional food at $3.99 per unit would net an estimated profit of $5.00 per pound which would allow a small farm to be profitable. Processing the wild blueberries, producing juice and processing by HPP or UV locally in Maine will be necessary to scale-up and work toward commercialization. Shipping costs were exorbitant throughout this project. Installing processing equipment to clean wild blueberries in Downeast Maine is estimated to cost between $350,000 and $500,000. Additional costs for the right sized juicing equipment, HPP or UV processing, and bottling equipment need to be determined in a Phase 2 project to realize the full potential to benefit small to midsized wild blueberry producers.

Publications

Progress 07/01/23 to 06/30/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience is small to midsized wild blueberry growers in Downeast Maine who are currently facing pressure of selling or stopping producing wild blueberries because the cost to produce and harvest them exceeds the wholesale price per unit for the wild berries. Future efforts will share next phase research outcomes, and likely partner with the University of Maine for outreach efforts through the cooperative extension. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Wicked Wild, LLC partnered with two academic institutions to carry out this research. Each University offered training and professional development. At the University of Maine, the program manager of the food laboratory was able to work with a new food product grown and harvested in Maine; test and use a new piece of juicing equipment that can have other value-added applications, and develop future phases of this research and lessons learned from the methodology that can be applied to other food processing. At the University of Oregon, Food Innovation Center, Ann Colonna, Ph.D., worked with several graduate students who gained training and professional development in completing the IRB review and approval process, screening and selecting survey participants for the consumer preference testing, and running a blind preference test with touchscreen Compusense software. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The cost benefit analysis based on the final report from the blueberry juicing production and methodology, new market research on potential value for value-added wellness products, and the size and willingness to pay information from the consumer preference testing at the University of Oregon.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Wicked Wild, LLC. pursued all three research objectives proposed in the original proposal, and has acheived results on the first two. The main takeaways are: Wild blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) do contain significantly more Anthocyanins and Antioxidant activity when compared to cultivated high-bush blueberry juice. The HPP processed juice did not have a microbial presence at zero and 90 days. Ultraviolet processed wild blueberry juice was preferred by consumers and described as sweet taste, fruity, simple, fresh blueberry, mild, fresh and floral. Wild blueberries were preferred over cultivated blueberries when considering a wellness shot for purchase. When branded as wild with nutritional information 63% of consumers tested would buy the UV processed juice.

Publications