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Category: In the News

Athlete Spotlight: John Cantrell Chooses LionBerry for Recovery & Focus

When it comes to sports performance, recovery isn’t optional — it’s essential. That belief is shared by John Cantrell, a heavyweight boxer known for his discipline, power, and commitment to training smart. That commitment is why John has chosen LIONBERRY as part of his routine. Built for Sports — Not Just the Game, But the […]

FOX 43 News Holiday Fling: Lionberry

TOPEKA (KTMJ) – Fox 43 AM Live’s Dane Kroll & John Cantrell chat with Bevin Brooks about Lionberry and what you can find at her booth while shopping at the Holiday Fling, December 13th & 14th, at the Stormont Vail Events Center. Click to watch our TV interview on KSNT

Hood Dude Food Review

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!

FOX4 Spotlight on Lionberry

Photo of Union Station showing a velvet rope in front of a Kansas City Chiefs flag and several tables set up for the KC Love event.

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:

FLOK Feature on Facebook

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:

KC Spotlight on Lionberry

Screenshot from KC Spotlight of Lionberry founder Bevin Brooks.

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 […]

Presentation at the Great Plains Growers Conference

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

Heartland Elderberry Collaborative (Heartland ECo)


“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


PROBLEM CONTEXT

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.


WHAT HEARTLAND ECo IS

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


WHAT HEARTLAND ECo IS NOT

• Not a single-farm expansion program
• Not a commodity-scale production model
• Not a vertically integrated corporate system


WHY ELDERBERRY

• 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.


CURRENT PILOT STATUS

• Core grower group established
• Regular coordination underway
• Shared infrastructure priorities identified
• Grower recruitment initiated
• Early coordination with grocery buyers in progress


SHARED INFRASTRUCTURE HUB CONCEPT

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.


PILOT OBJECTIVES

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


FORTHCOMING PILOT STUDY

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

DOWNLOAD POSTER HERE