Haskapa was founded by husband and wife team Evie, a medical doctor, and Simon, a ‘green’ entrepreneur. They fell in love with the wonderful haskap berry back in 2010 and found a way to combine their passions for the environment, holistic health and ethical business by growing the berries in Nova Scotia, Canada.
My cupboards are full of superfood powders, adaptogens, nuts and seeds so this new purple powder was a great new find for me, just look at that colour. Blue and purple plant foods are full of antioxidants, particularly those known to protect the brain and nervous system from oxidative stress and inflammation. I will be using mine in a smoothie and it’s worth noting that if you do want to use in a porridge to add at the end so the heat process doesn’t lessen the benefits of the nutrient value.
More about Evie & Simon’s experience developing Haskapa:
Harnessing the haskap’s extraordinary taste and deep colour, they created a juice, crowned best new juice in the world at the 2013 World Juice Awards. Quite an accolade! However, Evie felt that from a nutrition perspective there was much more to this berry than its distinct flavour, so at Haskapa, we set out to capture the berry’s unusually large amounts of naturally occurring anthocyanins.
After years of research and product development, a freeze-dried powder was created, retaining the high levels of the berry’s natural bioactive content. Haskapa’s signature powder product was launched in Canada in 2017 and is now being distributed across a growing number of countries. The powder is made using berries from their own farm and other carefully selected Canadian suppliers.
The nutritional content of the haskap berry has created significant scientific interest. Investment in high level research studies investigating nutrition, health benefits and farming have been commissioned at top universities. To date, Evie has coordinated eight multi-disciplinary Haskapa research symposia at Dalhousie University, for the broad benefit of the whole haskap industry.
Evie and Simon say, “We passionately believe that a healthy diet that includes purple anthocyanins, is a key factor in maintaining lifelong health and wellbeing. The humble haskap berry has that purple power in abundance. Oh, and it tastes amazing too!”