Enjoying Native Elderberry: It’s Horticulture and Health Potential

Join us to learn about the importance of growing native North American Elderberry, its hobby and commercial opportunities, as well as its incredible health potentials.

Christopher Patton, MA, MBA has an academic background in Israeli Archeology, Old World Prehistory (including paleoenvironments) and International Business Management/Marketing. His business background includes experience as an info technologist for Pillsbury Engineering and International R&D, specifically Haagen-Dazs International.

Chris is the Founding Director and President of the Midwest Elderberry Cooperative (MEC). He lives in Minneapolis, and has networked relationships with elderberry growers throughout the Midwest. MEC partners with growers and provides education about the growing of native North American Elderberry. It also produces and sells native North American elder berry and flower product ingredients including bulk de-stemmed, frozen, sanitized elderberries, dried berries, dried flowers, bulk frozen juice, and is working on IQF berries, freeze dried berries and puree.

Chris is also CEO of River Hills Harvest Marketers, LLC. He brings extensive knowledge and marketing of shelf-stable elderberry products for Terry Durham’s River Hills Harvest brand, a leading Missouri-based elderberry producer/processor. He also has established distribution relationships with Ron-Mar Foods, Market Distributing in the Twin Cities, Elegant Foods in Madison, WI, Hy-Vee Distributing, Inc. in Des Moines and KeHE Distributors to about 500 retail locations from Ohio to California.