Navigating a modern marketplace where consumers expect blueberries year-round, while simultaneously battling inflation, rising labor costs and supplies that threaten to outpace demand requires a delicate balancing act. According to Ellie Norris, the newly elected chair of the United States Highbush Blueberry Council and owner of Oregon’s Norris Farms, the upcoming July USDA referendum will be a pivotal moment in maintaining that momentum.
As the marketplace faces these evolving pressures, the council’s unified efforts have proven critical to sustaining growth. USHBC’s initiatives between 2010 and 2023 yielded a $19.29 return for every dollar spent, driving a 14% increase in average annual consumption, a 953-million-pound boost in demand, and a 163% surge in grower revenue, finds the independent 2024 Kaiser Report.
“That is exactly why USHBC was created: to grow demand for blueberries as a whole across states, regions and borders, and to keep us competitive when the volume is growing,” says Norris. “We want the consumer to have access to fresh blueberries year-round — whenever they want — but we also want to maintain that high price point, and so that’s exactly why 25 years ago the USHBC was created.”
In 2025, USHBC reports retail sales of fresh and frozen blueberries soared to a record $3.8 billion. Fresh blueberries alone achieved a 6.6% increase in dollar sales, nearly four times the 1.8% growth rate of the overall produce category. USHBC says this success is heavily anchored by the fruit’s reputation as a good-for-you superfruit.
To turn health benefits into deeper emotional connections, the USHBC recently launched its “Blueberries GO BIG” campaign. Using video ads, social media, connected TV and paid search to highlight the craveable and shareable nature of the fruit, the campaign has already surpassed expectations with over 257 million impressions and a cross-channel reach of 31.8 million, says USHBC.
But despite these wins, there’s still ample opportunity for growth, says Norris.
“Blueberries are consumed about one-third as much as strawberries, and that’s not a bad thing, that just means there’s more opportunity for consumers to pick up that clamshell and put them in a basket and take them home,” she says. “We know that there is a whole population of people who can be introduced and reintroduced to blueberries and the way they consume them. So, the focus for the USHBC right now is to bring consumers and blueberries back together.”
Referendum Approaching
Every five years, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service conducts a referendum among eligible domestic producers and importers of highbush blueberries. If continuance is favored by a majority of producers and importers voting in the next referendum, set from July 13-24, 2026, USDA will continue the blueberry program.
To vote in the referendum, producers and importers must have produced or imported 2,000 pounds or more of highbush blueberries during the representative period Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025, paid assessments during that period, and must currently be producers or importers subject to assessment under the program.
Norris says the future of the country’s blueberry industry is at stake in the upcoming referendum.
“Growers created USHBC to grow the demand, and without it we would lose the one unified voice that we have that isn’t a marketer’s voice, it isn’t a processor’s voice, it’s the grower’s voice,” she says. “It’s our unified singular voice that we have, and without that we lose the ability to influence the direction in which our category goes. Without an organization like the USHBC, we don’t have the ability to drive demand.”
For Norris, who runs Norris Farms’ approximately 700 acres of fresh blueberries alongside her 80-year-old father, the USHBC has been a constant.
“I love the USHBC,” she says. “I’ve been part of it since I was a kid. I’ve seen my dad grow it. I’ve seen fellow industry people grow it, and I see the good that it does with bringing all these very diverse regions and people together. I cannot imagine a blueberry world without it.”
And while Norris and the USHBC have good reason to think growers will renew their support for the program with a “yes” vote in the July referendum, she’s determined to continue to advocate for the program’s renewal.
“I have confidence in this community that I know so well,” she says. “I trust that they will do their reading and their research, and they will discuss, and they will look at the bigger global picture of what USHBC has done and is doing for us when it comes time to vote.
“There is overwhelming support for USHBC right now…but there’s always a chance for something, right? We have Oregon with a letter of support. We have Washington with a letter for support. We have New Jersey with a letter of support. And then we have these big co-op marketing groups like [Michigan’s] MBG. We’re getting letters of support from these large groups of growers saying, ‘yes, we believe in the USHBC,’ and so that gives me a great feeling, but I’m always going to be the one banging on that drum and knocking on the door to make sure that there’s never a question that it will not succeed.”
Next Generation Looks Ahead
Norris represents a new breed of agricultural leadership — one that balances fierce, forward-thinking optimism with a practical understanding of the grit required to keep a family farm alive. As the current board chair of the USHBC, her mission is to spark a renewed vigor among next-generation growers and unite disparate regions under a singular, vocal banner.
“I really want to unite and continue to unite the regions of the U.S. — to bring people together,” she says. “I want more participation at meetings. I want people to be more involved and more vocal. I want to hear what people are thinking and have to say, what their concerns are, and what their vision is for the USHBC, because we drive it together.”
After chairing the USHBC board for one year, Norris will become chair of the North American Blueberry Council. She is also on the Oregon Department of Ag board.
“I hope my personal legacy for the USHBC and NABC will be for as long as I’m around, and even after I’m not chair anymore, success for the referendum and growing the demand,” she says. “I hope it’s so successful that we don’t see the finish line. That’s how successful I want this to be. I want it to just keep going, even after we hit our mark. We hit a goal post, we make another goal post, so we just keep going.”
As her father approaches retirement and she takes the reins at Norris Farms, she’s acutely aware of the challenges facing blueberry farmers today. In the last year, she has seen the heart-wrenching reality of four family farms unable to pass the farm to the next generation.
“That is something that I am incredibly passionate about as well,” she says. “Family legacy and family farming and helping teach these farms what they need to do to prepare to go to the next generation, because it’s the transition that is where people stumble and they just can’t make it,” she says. “It’s heartbreaking. Everyone loves a farmer. But it’s really hard to be a farmer some days.”
Expanding Global Markets
Beyond domestic marketing, USHBC is leveraging millions in federal grant funding to aggressively scale global exports. These strategic efforts have unlocked high-value fresh markets in countries including Australia, China, the Philippines and Vietnam, contributing to a 15% increase in export volume and a 32% surge in total value from 2019 to 2025.
For Norris Farms, which exports upwards of 25% of its crop, breaking into new markets around the world is key to survival.
“We were, I believe, the first farm to export fresh blueberries into South Korea, and we were one of the first farms to briefly export into China, when that market was there,” says Norris.
The council plays a critical role on this export front, she says.
“USHBC makes it possible for a family farm like mine to compete on a global level,” she says. “That’s the whole point of the USHBC, is to take everyone’s singularity and bring us together.”
