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Heartland American Elderberry Co. Invited to Present at Urban Food Systems Symposium

Heartland American Elderberry Co. Invited to Present at Urban Food Systems Symposium

Heartland American Elderberry Co. Invited to Present at Urban Food Systems Symposium

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Heartland American Elderberry Co. is honored to announce that we have been invited to give a presentation at the Urban Food Systems Symposium, taking place September 14–17, 2026, in Kansas City, Missouri.

This opportunity comes through the support of the Kansas State University Urban Food Systems – UFSS SARE Professional Development Program Scholarship/Stipend, which helps advance innovation, education, and collaboration within sustainable food systems.

The Urban Food Systems Symposium brings together researchers, growers, educators, entrepreneurs, and community leaders from across the country to explore the future of local and regional food systems. As part of this year’s program, Heartland American Elderberry Co. will share insights into elderberry production, regenerative agriculture, value-added products, and the growing role of elderberry in supporting regional food economies.

We are grateful for this opportunity to represent the elderberry industry and connect with others who are passionate about building resilient and sustainable food systems.

Event Dates: September 14–17, 2026
Location: Kansas City, Missouri

We look forward to sharing more details as the event approaches.

For more information about the symposium, visit: urbanfoodsystemssymposium.org

To register for this event please visit the following URL: https://urbanfoodsystemssymposium.org/ →

 

Date And Time

09-14-2026 to
09-17-2026

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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