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Spotlight

Slaying the Cyclops

How the Twelve-Eyed Toad Sees What One Eye Cannot A working treatise by Bevin Brooks The Cyclops had one eye. One eye sees flat… no depth, no distance, no second

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July 2, 2026

Elderberry Curious?

One elderberry plant. One hunch. The hunch was that this plant… American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis, also classified by some authorities as Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis)… was going to matter. Not

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June 1, 2026

Meeting with Sharice Davids

Lionberry is always looking for the purple win! Thank you, Congresswoman Sharice Davids for taking the time to meet with Kansas farmers and help us to promote sustainability and infrastructure

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August 13, 2025

All About AgriClusters

What in the world is an AgriCluster? Ultimately, it is a fancy compound word that refers to interconnected agricultural businesses operating within a small radius. Or, as the North American

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June 20, 2025
Photo of an elderberry plant. It's a light green color with white flower buds.

Elderberry and Regenerative Farming

Elderberry is an EASY way to start Regenerative Farming Practices! Elderberry plays a beneficial role in REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE! 1. PREVENTS SOIL EROSION because elderberry has an extensive root systems that

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May 19, 2025
Photo of elderberry branches in a pile.

Can elderberry juice improve cognition?

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

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May 5, 2025
Jenny Dotty and Karen Blakeslee

I Found a Pride of Lionesses!

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

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May 5, 2025

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

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March 31, 2025
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.

FOX4 Spotlight on Lionberry

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

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February 17, 2025

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

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January 30, 2025

Lionberry Booth Preview

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!

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January 22, 2025
Screenshot from KC Spotlight of Lionberry founder Bevin Brooks.

KC Spotlight on Lionberry

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

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January 20, 2025

What are we, exactly?

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

BS Weekly #13

That's the question I keep circling after Mount Vernon. Are we a specialty crop, or are we bait for big ag? Because those are two very different futures, and American elderberry is standing right at the fork.

This June the national elderberry community gathered in Mount Vernon, Missouri. The Heartland American Elderberry Collaborative brought our poster. LIONBERRY REGENERATIVE™ stood alongside Elder Farms and River Hills Harvest. Dr. Andrew Thomas hosted, Buehler Organics and Elder Farms put on a dinner, and researchers, growers, and processors all ended up at the same tables. Good food, good people, real momentum.

But here's the edge I can't put down. The moment a crop gets valuable, the commodity machine notices. It comes in offering scale and efficiency, and it leaves behind growers who no longer own anything, working someone else's market for someone else's margin. We've watched it happen to crop after crop. The question isn't whether American elderberry is worth that much attention. It's whether we'll be the ones holding it when it is.

So why does this crop matter enough to fight over? The science is finally catching up to what growers always sensed. American elderberry is anti-inflammatory in a way that speaks straight to how most of us actually live now, carrying oxidative stress from overprocessed food. And it's stepping into the GLP-1 and metabolic-recovery moment, where early results on blood sugar and fat oxidation are turning heads. Our native berry isn't the understudy to European Sambucus nigra either. The American acylated anthocyanin is more protected, more likely to survive processing and reach where it's meant to work. We are not the lesser version. We are the better one, and we're only now saying it out loud.

That's exactly why the fork matters. A crop this promising will get built into a market by somebody. The only question is whose hands stay on it.

Here's where I land, and where Mount Vernon left me hopeful. We are small, and small is not the weakness everyone assumes. Small means we can actually know each other. It means a grower, a researcher, and a brand can sit at one dinner table and leave understanding each other's language. That's how an AgriCluster works. We stick together, we grow the grower base on our own terms, and we build the shared story before anyone builds it for us. We're standing on fertile ground here, in the dark, underground, where the real trading happens before anything shows on the surface.

More growers, yes. But growers who own it. That's the whole game.