Gem Berry turns a sweet 25

SANDPOINT — Through recession, competition and rising process for raw materials, Gem Berry Products has proven to be the little entrepreneurial engine that could.

The locally owned company, which produces an award-winning line of huckleberry products for mostly Pacific Northwest customers, now celebrates its 25th year in business.

Backing up a few years, the story’s true beginning happened when Harry Menser and Susan Moon partnered for a start-up raspberry growing business in the early 1990s. That concept didn’t fly as planned, but the berries grew and another opportunity dropped Harry and his wife, Betty, into the brainstorming mode with friends Jack and Elizabeth O’Brien, who also were trying their hands at raspberry growing.

“The way it started out was that we coaxed the (Idaho) Department of Commerce to put a commercial kitchen in the business incubator,” Harry said, recalling the production facility that used to be in place at Sandpoint’s business development center next door to the airport. “We wanted to do something in a value-added fashion with the raspberries we were growing.”

Elizabeth originally concocted a raspberry jam, followed by related products such as syrup and barbecue sauce. Because the O’Briens were friends with the Hawkins family, owners and founders of Litehouse Foods, they were instrumental in forming a bond when that growing operation needed a new producer for its branded label of huckleberry food items.

By the early 2000s, the two couples and their tasty line were riding high and the awards were rolling in. The first came from the Idaho Specialty Foods Association for one of the raspberry products, followed by a Best New Product award for huckleberry syrup and yet another when the couples launched a blended syrup made from both types of berries.

“That involved competition with Darigold and some other big companies — and we won that one, too,” said Harry.

Gem Berry was keeping the commercial kitchen humming and huckleberries were driving most of the growth as Litehouse sold the products as fast as the couples could make them.

“One year, we bought 26,000 pounds of huckleberries,” Harry said. “That’s a lot of huckleberries.”

So successful was the little company that the Mensers and the O’Briens bought it from Litehouse in 2004, and managed to pay it off within three years. Coldwater Creek became one of its largest customers and Gem Berry — which was buying huckleberries for between $15-$16 a gallon — continued to flourish.

Then came 2008 and the global recession.

“We lost business right and left and huckleberry prices went from $20 to $30 to $35 a gallon,” said Menser, noting that, while materials costs had soared, the products themselves did not have the luxury of keeping pace through similar price increases.

Further complicating matters was a jump in regional competition and the rise in Asian demand for the wild berries.

“The bottom line is, the competition for huckleberries exploded,” Menser said.

But the tough times were not through with Gem Berry Products. The Coldwater Creek account disappeared when the Sandpoint-based company discontinued its national operations. The commercial kitchen that had been its home base was dismantled to make room for a firm that took over the business incubator space.

Most heartbreaking of all, Harry lost Betty to cancer in 2009, and Elizabeth and Jack O’Brien, too, passed away, in 2005 and 2012, respectively, leaving him as the sole surviving member of the founding team. Consider the circumstances, as well as the fact that Harry was well into his 80s by this time, and you’d come to the conclusion that he’d just as well call it quits.

You’d be wrong.

“I’ve faced that question myself several times and every time I say, ‘No,’” he said, giving an unambiguous thumbs-down to the idea.

“I saw the Great Depression back in Delaware and we made it through that — and I have this love of agriculture,” he added, listing his former career as an agricultural research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his seven years of related work as superintendent and horticulturist at Sandpoint’s University of Idaho Extension office. “If not for a turn of events, I would have probably been a farmer.”

After a period where the O’Briens daughter, Mary Miller, worked with her sons to cook product in the kitchen at the new St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Gem Berry looked into facilities in Rathdrum and other locations before landing on the commercial kitchen at the Ponderay Events Center. Menser now works there with the O’Briens’ grandson, Clint Miller, as well as with part-time helper Mandy Morley.

Sales representative Sandy Dell has expanded the label’s reach, which now includes Yoke’s and Super 1 Foods stores around the region, along with a few Spokane vendors and, here at home, Marketplace Antiques, Cedar Street Bistro and Sandpoint Super Drug.

There have been offers to buy the company, Menser explained, but he’s not ready to let it go. Too much of who he is and what he loves is tied up in the tale and he’s not done writing just yet.

“I’m not that far off from being 90, and it’s a life story, in a way,” he said. “As long as my health is good, I’ll keep at it.”

For more information of Gem Berry Products and its complete line, visit online at: www.gemberry.com