Lionberry
REGENERATIVE
Researchers from the University of South Florida, the University of Missouri, A.T. Still University, Indiana University, and the Children’s Hospital Colorado asked that exact question in their recent study. Focused specifically on patients with mild cognitive impairment, they concluded the following: “Preliminary findings show that daily elderberry juice consumption for 6 months in patients with […]
Lionberry found a huge pride of LIONESSES to be drawn to! First off, I am here for the @thewomensfair! Those Lionesses are the epitome of women’s entrepreneurial spirit! AND Tonight before the show, I am at the Wichita Packaging and Labeling Workshop in Ala Carte Kitchen Incubator by Create Campaign learning from Jenny Doty of […]
Lionberry recently celebrated Ag Day at the Kansas State Capitol. We talked about planting Elderberry and our quest to get Kansas on the map as a top producer of Elderberry! We took samples of our Elderberry SIPS and Lionberry Restorative Refreshers! And, of course, we talked about our new home at the Olathe K-State Food […]
The Epitome stopped by one of our pop-ups at the West Bottoms Market in Kansas City, Mo. He has been posting local business/restaurant reviews called HOOD DUDE FOOD REVIEW. He might be taking Elderberry Shots more often after he tries a Lionberry! Thanks for the kind words!
One of the most important parts of our day-to-day work is the ability to lift other local businesses along the way. Here are just a few of the ways we incorporate them: Ingredients Marketing We are also part of the Elder Farms Collective which includes 20-plus farms we buy additional elderberry from if we run […]
Ahead of the KC Love event at Union Station, Lioberry founder Bevin Brooks was interviewed on FOX4 in Kansas City. We had a great time at KC Love and enjoyed meeting so many of you! You can see the full segment below:
We recently received a question from one of our customers and thought we would share our answer here: Post Question: Fresh pressed sounds like wasn’t cooked? Am I misunderstanding? Because elderberries must be cooked before being consumed to prevent risk of cyanide poisoning. Answer: Great question! The elderberry is fresh-pressed before it is lightly pasteurized to […]
We want to thank From the Land of Kansas (FLOK) for featuring Lionberry this month across its social media channels. We’ve shared a few of their posts below for you to enjoy:
In December, we participated in Jingle! at Legends Field in Kansas City, Kan. Here is a preview of our booth. Stay tuned for more event announcements in the new year!
Lionberry founder Bevin Brooks was recently featured on KC Spotlight to help preview the Johnson County Home & Garden Show. WHAT: Johnson County Home & Garden ShowWHEN: January 24-26 (Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.)WHERE: Booth #86 at the Overland Park Convention Center […]
“Instead of asking each farm to grow bigger, we’re building shared capacity so farms can stay viable at their current scale while accessing value-added markets.”
An AgriCluster Pilot for Shared Infrastructure and Value-Added Market Access
Eastern Kansas / Western Missouri
Small and mid-sized farms face persistent structural barriers to entering value-added markets, including:
• Limited access to processing infrastructure
• Limited cold storage capacity
• Transportation constraints
• Fragmented, uncoordinated distribution
• High costs from duplicating equipment and logistics across individual farms
These constraints restrict grower profitability, inhibit vertical integration, and reduce the viability of diversified regional food systems.
The Heartland Elderberry Collaborative (Heartland ECo) is an active, facilitated, place-based AgriCluster pilot organizing elderberry growers and processors in eastern Kansas and western Missouri.
• Facilitated through ACRE (AgriCluster Resilience and Expansion)
• Emphasizes collective capacity-building and shared infrastructure
• Designed to enable farm-level vertical integration (grow, process, and take products to market)
• Structured to share infrastructure, governance, and market access
• Not a single-farm expansion program
• Not a commodity-scale production model
• Not a vertically integrated corporate system
• Performs well on marginal soils
• Integrates with soil-health and regenerative practices
• Supports perennial hedgerows and diversified systems
• Enables multiple value-added pathways (destemming, juicing, beverage and supplement production)
• Aligns with growing consumer demand for regionally produced products
The pilot is explicitly designed to test repeatability across additional non–Big Ag crops, including tomatoes, fruit crops, and legumes.
• Core grower group established
• Regular coordination underway
• Shared infrastructure priorities identified
• Grower recruitment initiated
• Early coordination with grocery buyers in progress
The Heartland ECo model proposes a centralized hub facility located south of Kansas City to support participating farms and processors.
• Aggregation and intake
• Cold storage
• Destemming
• Juicing
• Bottling
• Short-haul regional distribution
The hub is intended to reduce duplicated equipment costs, logistical inefficiencies, and fragmented distribution efforts that commonly limit small-farm participation in value-added markets.
Establish a functioning elderberry AgriCluster
Create shared access to processing, storage, and distribution infrastructure
Build collective grant-writing and fundraising capacity
Coordinate educational outreach related to elderberry and soil-health practices
Evaluate feasibility of scaling the model across additional crops and regions
This poster outlines a proposal for a forthcoming pilot study to formally evaluate the effectiveness of the Heartland ECo model.
• Economic impact
• Grower profitability
• Infrastructure utilization
• Soil-health indicators
• Logistical efficiency
• Replicability across crops and regions
