WESTERN PRODUCER — Canada’s cranberry industry is surprisingly large.
In 2020, the farmgate value of cranberries (grown mostly in Quebec and British Columbia) was $155 million. That’s bigger than the farmgate value of strawberries ($127 million) and not far behind grapes ($187 million)
An Agriculture Canada scientist is convinced that another red berry, which is extremely healthy and tasty, could record similar sales or maybe exceed cranberry revenues.
But there’s one problem.
Almost no one in Canada grows lingonberries.
“I would eat them every day,” said Chris Siow, an Agriculture Canada scientist in Winnipeg. “But there’s no supply.”
In late January, Siow invited an Agriculture Canada communications specialist and a reporter to his laboratory at the St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg to learn about his research on lingonberries.
Sitting inside a small conference room, Siow explained how he came to study lingonberries, a small, tart berry that grows in the wild on short bushes. They grow in many regions of Canada: wooded areas, sandy bogs, rocky mountain cliffs and mossy grasslands. Outside of Canada they do well in northern latitudes, like Scandinavia, northern Germany and Russia.
Depending on the region of Canada, they’re also known as low bush cranberries, mossberries, partridge berries and many other names.
In 2009, Siow took a job with Agriculture Canada, working at the Canadian Centre for Agri-Food Research in Health and Medicine at St. Boniface Hospital.
Siow, a biochemist, studies the potential health benefits of Canadian crops and agri-foods.
“My laboratory mission is trying to think of innovative ways to manage diseases without the use of drugs,” he said.
Not long after getting the job, he took a trip out East and met with scientists from Agriculture Canada research centres in Atlantic Canada. One of them was Samir Debnath, who studies northern berry crops in St. John’s, N.L.
Debnath asked Siow if he was interested in lingonberries, which grow in the Avalon Peninsula and in other parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.
“I said, I’ve never heard of lingonberries. I know cranberries because I have cranberry sauce with my turkey.”
Debnath shipped a package of lingonberries to Winnipeg, so Siow could test them in his laboratory.
The results were a surprise.
“My research in the lab was focused on antioxidants at that time,” said Siow, who was at the University of Manitoba and University of Hong Kong before joining Ag Canada.
“I ran it (lingonberries) through the (test) and I said, ‘wow, this is the highest anti-oxidant I’ve ever seen of any berries.’ It was even higher than blueberries…. That really stimulated my interest.”
Lingonberries have high levels of anthocyanins, pigments found in colourful foods like purple cabbage, grapes and red onions. Berries have the highest amounts of anthocyanins — natural antioxidants — that may prevent cell damage and ward off disease.
Siow wanted to know if the anti-oxidants in lingonberries had benefits for human health. So, he conducted several studies on heart cells, rats and mice.
After years of research, he learned the following:
- Low doses of the anthocyanins in lingonberries can protect heart cells from damage.
- When a small dose of lingonberry juice was given to rats, where the blood vessels to the kidneys were blocked to simulate kidney injury, the rats’ kidneys had less inflammation and the kidney function was quickly restored.
“The study shows that (consuming lingonberry juice) can be used to alleviate acute kidney injury, a post-operative complication that has resulted in millions of deaths worldwide,” says a 2017 research paper.
In another study, Siow and his team looked at three groups of mice. The first group received a regular diet, the second group a high-fat diet and the third a high-fat diet with a dose of lingonberries.
- The mice on the high fat diet became obese and developed chronic kidney disease. They also developed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a health issue for about 20 percent of Canadians.
- The mice on the high fat diet that also consumed lingonberries were still obese but their liver and kidney function was much better.
In simple language, the mice that ate lingonberries were heavy but relatively healthy.
“Lingonberry consumption can decrease fat accumulation and increase fat breakdown in the liver,” says a summary of the research.
The result was significant, Siow added, because millions of people struggle with diets and losing weight.
“It shows you can still have better health, even if your weight doesn’t decrease…. If you consume the right diet.”
Siow believes the findings of the mouse and rat studies can be transferred to humans. About one cup of lingonberries or one cup of juice, per day, should provide benefits for human health.
Given the scientific research, it seems like Canadians should be eating more lingonberries.
But that’s hard to do when they’re hard to find.
“We have produced all these articles on the health benefits on lingonberries, but it’s not available in the market,” Siow said. “Every time I publish, I get people asking… where do I get these lingonberries?”
He has received emails from people across Canada, in California, Oregon, pet food companies and others, asking for information on how to buy the berries.
His source of lingonberries for experiments has been wild harvesters from Lynn Lake, Man., but the quantity is small.
“The raw berries, I’ve never seen it in the market (grocery store),” he said, adding a limited supply of lingonberry juice and other products are available online.
“You can find it at Amazon and Walmart, online…. There is demand for these berries. Even if you process it to… a puree or powder, people will buy it. The lingonberry powder, you can put into smoothies.”
Lingonberries are more available in Sweden and other Scandinavian nations, where it’s part of the food culture.
“Fresh lingonberries are sold all over Sweden in August and September,” says swedishfood.com. “Most Swedes have a large bag of lingonberries in their freezer.”
There are places in Canada, mostly northern regions, where locals collect wild lingonberries.
But the supply isn’t large enough and may not be reliable from year to year.
Therefore, Canada needs people who will grow lingonberries on their farms.
“If you produce it, people will buy it,” Siow said.
“We need somebody to grow them…. You cannot a push a commodity into the market and there’s no supply one year.”
For the last two years, researchers at Agriculture Canada in Morden, Man., have been growing lingonberries to understand how they perform in a warmer part of the Prairies.
The cultivars come from a Catholic brotherhood near Quebec City, which has been growing lingonberries since 2005. They have a catchy name, The Brothers’ Lingonberries, and their website contains videos and agronomic advice at airellesdesfreres.com/?lang=en.
“Over the years we succeeded in developing an expertise that we are now happy to share with others,” it says.
The researchers in Morden have also been testing lingonberry cultivars developed by Agriculture Canada researchers in Newfoundland and Labrador.
It’s only been two years, but the lingonberries in Morden got through an extreme drought in the summer of 2021 and survived the brutal winter of 2021-22.
“They are growing well (in Morden),” Siow said.
If someone with an acreage or a farmer is interested in the berries, Agriculture Canada has created a guide to growing lingonberries.
An updated version of the guide will be posted online this winter.
The research on the health benefits and how to grow lingonberries isn’t finished, but Siow said Canada can’t wait much longer.
He gets inquiries from farmers in other parts of North America, such as North Dakota, Minnesota and Oregon, who are interested in growing lingonberries.
“If we don’t get our act together to farm this, we will lose the opportunity.”
For more information on growing lingonberries, contact Agriculture Canada in Morden at 204-822-7556 or by email at chris.siow@agr.gc.ca.
