Honeyberry Farm and Corvallis FFA partner to win National FFA Award

by Bitterroot Chamber of Agriculture and Local Foods Committee

The Bitterroot Valley is the “banana belt” of Montana, renowned for its fruit production. Apples and pears abound. So do berries, including common ones like raspberry and blackberry as well as less common ones like saskatoon (serviceberry) and aronia (chokeberry). But perhaps the most unusual local fruit is the one whose name alone makes you salivate: the honeyberry. 

Honeyberries look like slightly lumpy, elongated blueberries, with the same dusky bluish purple hue. Like blueberries, they are a superfood, containing high levels of vitamin C and significantly more antioxidants than other fruits. With a slightly meaty texture, their tangy sweet flavor has been described as a cross between a raspberry and a blueberry, with perhaps some notes of pomegranate and plum.  

Honeyberries have other attributes going for them: they are native to northern regions like Montana and are therefore cold-hardy. They are seldom susceptible to pests so lend  themselves to cultivation without pesticides. Taken together, these attributes – cold tolerant, native, pest-resistant, full of healthy antioxidants – and most importantly,  delicious, mean that honeyberries may well be the next big thing in fruit. 

At least, that’s what students in the Corvallis, Montana, chapter of Future Farmers of America (FFA) are planning on. Last fall, the team of Morgan Bisel, Jackson Pliley, and Beauden Therrien competed at the FFA national convention in Indianapolis and came home with a gold medal, placing 4th overall for their marketing plan for a novel honeyberry product, “Very Berry Vinaigrette.”  

Melissa Allred of Aspen Grove Farm in Corvallis is the first commercial honeyberry grower in Montana. Her five acres of honeyberry bushes produce about 15,000 pounds of berries annually, all ripening in a narrow window from early July to early August. This sounds like a delicious problem to have, but it poses a challenge on the sales side: simultaneous ripening means that the bounty must all be dealt with at once. Even with presence at area farmers markets, a farmstand, U-pick days, and wholesale and retail customers, not all of Allred’s berries can be sold fresh. Last summer, Therrien worked at Aspen Grove, where he  learned firsthand about the risk that all that simultaneous berry abundance would result in food waste.  

This is where value-added products like syrups and jams play an important role in the  economics of the farm and in avoiding food waste. Some of Allred’s harvest is already  transformed into signature products like Honeyberry Heaven Syrup, Honeyberry Jalapeno Jam, or her favorite, Honeyberry Haze BBQ Sauce. But the need to diversify the honeyberry portfolio even further led Allred to partner with the Corvallis FFA chapter on their plan to market the vinaigrette. 

Neela Hammerstein is the Corvallis FFA advisor and an award-winning teacher. In addition to agricultural classes, Hammerstein also teaches food science, making use of a repurposed kitchen from the high school’s former culinary arts program. It’s no surprise  then that the FFA students’ projects often blend culinary interest and farming perspectives. As Hammerstein explained, “I teach food science and use the kitchen space to teach culinary skills, but also where food comes from and why we should appreciate local farmers.” As part of the FFA program, Hammerstein organizes a local food tour each May, from which she and the students source ideas for the competition season. Over the years, they’ve visited egg farmers and dairy farmers, practiced making charcuterie boards with cheeses and meats made by local producers, and spent time on Allred’s berry farm. “We always think about partnerships with local farms, because it’s so much richer when we meet with the farmer and can then share the story of the farmer” at competition, Hammerstein explained.  

Ten percent of Corvallis High School’s roughly 400 students participate in FFA, an  organization whose mission is to develop youth leadership and personal growth through  agricultural education. Competition is a huge part of the FFA experience – 70,000 people attended the national convention last year and teams from nearly every state participate. To represent Montana, Corvallis FFA first had to win the state competition, beating out teams from much larger schools, including Missoula – where Hammerstein’s dad is the FFA advisor. 

Therrien and Pliley, both juniors, partnered with Morgan Bisel, now a freshman in college, on the “Very Berry Vinaigrette” marketing plan. When asked how they came together as a  team, Pliley explained, “Morgan is great with words and putting the portfolio together, Beauden had the experience on the farm and worked on the slides and I, well, I speak well during presentation.” The marketing plan competition consisted of two parts: the portfolio, a slide deck containing information about Aspen Grove farm, the vinaigrette idea, marketing statistics, and sales goals; and a 15-minute presentation to a panel of judges followed by Q&A. A critical part of the plan was the survey the students designed to assess the vinaigrette’s sales potential. An impressive 227 individuals and 23 restaurants responded to the survey, informing the marketing and sales projections. Allred and her team supplemented these data with information about her farm’s business, product pricing, and manufacturing requirements.  

In 2025, 35 state teams competed in the marketing proposal category, with the top 8  receiving gold medals and the “Final Four” – including Corvallis – honored on stage at the awards ceremony. For Therrien, a nationals first-timer, it was “really fun, because beyond the competition part, it was great seeing so many kids all wearing the same FFA jacket and seeing everyone else’s cool ideas. There’s both competition and service aspects and it’s one big event for FFA members to all come together.” Pliley added “the final was a bit nerve-wracking because there was live television. But winning a gold medal was pretty exciting.” 

Said Allred, “The kids have so much passion and I’m amazed at their work ethic. It was a privilege that they asked if they could use the farm for their marketing plan. My kids and I got up early to watch them on live television and during the finals we were jumping up and  down – at 6:30 in the morning!” 

When asked what favorite foods they’d put the vinaigrette on, Therrien and Pliley leaned  into their culinary creativity, perhaps influenced by Hammerstein’s holistic approach to  agricultural education. Pliley suggested a salad of local greens and feta with walnuts, while Therrien would love to try it on an acai bowl.  

They may soon get to taste it on their dishes of choice. Allred now plans to make and sell honeyberry vinaigrette as part of her product line-up. She’s bringing the vinaigrette to this weekend’s Made in Montana Trade Show as well as the Northwest Food Show next month in Portland. Those vinaigrette bottles will carry a very special label, for which Allred has just gotten the national organization’s approval: “Proud Sponsor of FFA.”