'Berry Exciting'
Profile
By Brian Salgado   
Thursday, 21 June 2007
venture-smc, hurst berry
President Mark Hurst never intended to become a large grower and distributor of berries when he set out to open his business, Hurst’s Berry Farm (HBF), in 1980. His goal was to start a business in an area that would be a good place to raise his family. Almost three decades later, Hurst intends to keep the family atmosphere of his business even as HBF grows.Today, HBF grows blueberries and kiwiberries on its own 83 acres in Sheridan, Ore. The company also leases 300 acres in Mexico, where it farms blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries during the winter months, and 75 grower/partners that grow other berries, as well. When it comes to expansion, however, Hurst says two sites are all HBF needs to serve customers while keeping the close-knit atmosphere. “We don’t want to work out of 27 areas,” Hurst adds. “We want to keep the company a family-type where we all know what each other is doing. We don’t want to build ourselves into a big corporate thing that we don’t enjoy working in.”

Starting Over
When a partially insured facility burns to the ground, a business might go under or have to start over. Hurst, and his brother-in-law/partner, Dan Caldwell, had always discussed what would need to happen to keep the business going if a tragedy like this ever occurred.That scenario became a reality in January 1989, when the firm’s packing facility burnt to the ground. Hurst and Caldwell were prepared for such an event, however, and, utilizing Caldwell’s carpentry expertise, the company was ready for the busy season, which started just four months after the fire. It took a month to clear the site of the debris from the previous facility. Another month was needed for the foundation work, and exterior and interior construction took a month apiece. Although no one wants a fire to take out their business for months at a time, Hurst admits that building an 8,000-square-foot facility, which was more than double the size of the previous one, and adding state-of-the-art equipment definitely helped his company get to where it is today – one of the top berry growers and distributors in the western United States.“It is a key part of our history and it is a part of our growth,” Hurst says. “By having it all reorganized and state of the art compared to what other people were doing at that particular time in history, it was huge opportunity to get in and do more growth.”

Innovation is Key
HBF has a history of innovation in its industry, according to Hurst. For instance, HBF built one of the first controlled-atmosphere rooms in 1994 for long-term storage in blueberries. These rooms change the properties of the air, which slows down the respiration of the fruit, according to Hurst.This practice is commonplace for apples and pears, and the process enables distributors to provide seasonal fruit year-round.“We asked a company to come down and help us design something for blueberries because there was a market we were missing out on in the fall,” Hurst says. “Pre-cooling is a different subject than long-term storage of blueberries. It requires a technology called ‘forced-air cooling.’ We were one of the first companies to do pre-cooling on our blueberries, but now it is pretty standard.” HBF has also expanded into Mexico to grow blueberries during the offseason in Oregon. Hurst says the company has grown berries on 300 leased acres in the states of Michoacan, Jalisco and Colima since 1998. Although it grows its own blueberries and raspberries on this land, HBF also purchases blackberries from a network of other farms in Mexico.

Healthy and Delicious
Hurst foresees HBF’s business continuing to grow during the next few years for a number of reasons, especially after experiencing an average annual growth of 10 percent the last six years.One is the health benefits of blueberries combined with the their natural taste. “The key reason is the health benefits because, unlike other health foods, [they] taste good,” he says. “[They have become the] fastest-growing items in the produce departments in most stores.”
 
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