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How Blueberries Became a Superfood - Outside Online
Thanks to savvy marketing, science, and luck, blueberries helped usher in a new era of health food obsession
In December 1996, John Sauve, then-executive director of the Wild Blueberry Association of North America (WBANA), received an unexpected fax. It contained an article from the latest issue of AgResearch titled: “Plant Pigments Paint a Rainbow of Antioxidants.”
At first, Sauve wasn’t sure what to make of the article. Like most people at the time, he had no real idea what antioxidants were: they were only just starting to enter the public consciousness, thanks to the emergence of mutually supportive research and marketing. Sauve definitely didn’t know they would soon become fundamental to the public perception of wild blueberries, which are smaller, more flavorful, and less common than the cultivated highbush blueberry familiar to most shoppers.
Back then, blueberries weren’t seen by many consumers as an especially healthy fruit. They were just something you put in a pie. You found them in the supermarket next to the whipped cream. In 1994, Sauve gave a presentation on the five points of appeal he’d identified for wild blueberries—none of them were related to nutrition. “We were still trying to sell blueberries because they taste good inside of muffins, and we were doing OK with that,” he says in a droll Maine accent. “Health wasn’t even on the radar screen.”
Thanks to savvy marketing, science, and luck, blueberries helped usher in a new era of health food obsession
In December 1996, John Sauve, then-executive director of the Wild Blueberry Association of North America (WBANA), received an unexpected fax. It contained an article from the latest issue of AgResearch titled: “Plant Pigments Paint a Rainbow of Antioxidants.”
At first, Sauve wasn’t sure what to make of the article. Like most people at the time, he had no real idea what antioxidants were: they were only just starting to enter the public consciousness, thanks to the emergence of mutually supportive research and marketing. Sauve definitely didn’t know they would soon become fundamental to the public perception of wild blueberries, which are smaller, more flavorful, and less common than the cultivated highbush blueberry familiar to most shoppers.
Back then, blueberries weren’t seen by many consumers as an especially healthy fruit. They were just something you put in a pie. You found them in the supermarket next to the whipped cream. In 1994, Sauve gave a presentation on the five points of appeal he’d identified for wild blueberries—none of them were related to nutrition. “We were still trying to sell blueberries because they taste good inside of muffins, and we were doing OK with that,” he says in a droll Maine accent. “Health wasn’t even on the radar screen.”
