Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
From Hive to Hedgerow: Building a Truly Potent Elderberry Syrup with Russell Carter
Most elderberry syrups start with water. Ours starts with a farm. We sit down with Russell Carter of Heartland Elderberry Farms to unpack how a beekeeping family scaled from 50 shrubs to tens of thousands of plants—and why using fresh, fast-frozen elderberry juice changes everything from flavor to potency. If you’ve ever wondered why some syrups taste thin or overly sweet, the answer often hides in plain sight on the label: water first, dehydrated imports behind it, and heat steps that cost you nutrients long before a bottle ships.
Russell takes us into the field and through the bottling room. He explains American elderberry varieties that fruit on primocanes, the heavy water needs that demand irrigation, and a harvest routine that moves berries from morning picking to afternoon pressing to frozen juice by night. That quick turnaround protects anthocyanins and polyphenols while keeping microbes in check—no preservatives required. We dig into the five-ingredient recipe—elderberry juice, raw farm honey, fresh ginger, Ceylon cinnamon, and star anise—and why thick texture should come from honey, not gums or fillers. The bees matter too: 100% of the honey in the bottle comes from the farm’s 450 hives, closing the loop on flavor, traceability, and quality.
On the business side, Russell shares how they partnered with the University of Georgia for shelf-life studies and manufacturing compliance, then graduated from 15-gallon kitchen batches to a 400-gallon tank and an automated filling line—without compromising the harvest-press-freeze rhythm that makes the juice so clean. We also talk distribution choices, from local stores to their website, Amazon, and Walmart.com, and the decision to grow thoughtfully rather than chase mass retail. The practical takeaway is empowering and simple: flip your bottle. If water leads the ingredient list, you’re buying reconstituted fruit. If juice leads, you’re getting the real strength of elderberry.
If this conversation resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves natural remedies, and leave a review telling us what your label says first. Your feedback helps more people find farm-first, juice-forward elderberry that actually delivers.
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Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we've got a very special guest. His name's Russell Carter, and he's from the Heartland Elderberry Farms. And you know, this is a guy who actually I'm interested in talking to because as many of you know, I'm a formulator and you know I work with natural ingredients and finding good sources, especially today in this world where so much comes from China and and other countries where they claim things and you have no idea what you're getting. Um, to work with the farmers, to work with the the people that uh are actually involved in the process is really important. So uh Russell, without further ado, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Joe, I'm doing well. Appreciate you having us on. Fantastic. So, you know, I always like to start off an interview with sort of the Genesis stories. So why don't you tell us, you know, elderberries, it's a thing that many of us natural guys know about. Yeah. Um, it's a fairly common enough term, but you know, tell us about how you got involved in elderberries.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, for sure. So uh it actually started with uh uh our business started with honey bees, actually. Uh we we actually run two separate businesses. Uh we we have a commercial beekeeping operation as well as the elderberry farm. Nice. Uh, but uh so we we started with bees about 10 years ago and kind of grew that. We're currently running about 450 hives. Nice. And and 100% of the raw honey that we produce on our own farm goes into our elderberry syrup. So it's a great great inner vertically uh vertically integrated company. So but we've been my family and I, even growing up uh as a kid, we were taking elderberries, but we were my mom and parents, my mom and dad were always like, let's go out and forage for them, right? So as you I'm sure are aware, and most people are aware, elderberries grow wild. If you can find if you can find a nice patch of them away from any agricultural stuff like that, um it's kind of like uh you know, a free-for-all, it's kind of a secret. You don't want to tell anybody that's there, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right, right, exactly. But you can just pick them off the tree and eat them, really, right? Oh, we do it all the time. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, they had to be processed.
SPEAKER_01:So that is a that is a that is the consensus that gets thrown around a lot. Okay. Okay, so um I will I will say this the studies kind of show the European variety of elderberry uh has a high higher level of toxicity, the seeds do, than the American elderberries. Okay, we all and I and listen, I'm I'm the farmer guy, I'm not the science guy, I'm not the just tell you what we do. We eat we eat fresh elderberries when they're ripe, as we're picking them every single every single day for about six weeks. So and I'm still kicking, so I hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_00:Let's let the proof be in the pudding. I exactly I'm all about uh the experience as well as the science. So this is great.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, so as a kid, we used to forage for elderberries, and my mom would always make elderberry jams, elderberry jellies, elderberry syrups for the cold and flu season, using using fresh berries, right? So she would press, she would press the juice and we'd make it. Well, as my wife and I got married and started having kids, we didn't really necessarily have the time to go do that, right? So what we what we started what we started doing was we just bought what was commercially available, the sambacalls, the Mary Ruth's, the all the all the brands out there that you've heard of. Sure. And it's it is so noticeably different of a product um than what you're than what you uh what you'll get if you make it yourself with a fresh berry. So we started looking at that and we're like, why like what are the what are the differences here? And time and time again, the first thing that we saw when we were looking at the ingredients ingredient labels on all of these packages, the first ingredient is water. Okay, so that was the first thing. So you're already starting with a diluted product, right? And then and then we started really getting in getting down the rabbit hole of it all, and really came to find out about 95%, 90 to 95 percent of every commercially available elderberry syrup on the market is first ingredient, is water. Okay, yeah, so it's and and all of the listeners, if they're got elderberry in their coverage, go just flip it over and look for yourself. And I would guarantee it's gonna be water. So we were like, Well, why is that? Like, what is the reason for the water? Because it just sounds sounds to us like you're immediately deliberately have lots of water in them all by themselves, right? Exactly, and why mess with what God gave us? Let's just keep it pure and simple and whatever. Well, the answer, the answer is that elderberry farming is very, very niche in the United States. Okay, so there are very few what what I would consider commercial elderberry farmers in the United States, but okay, so if you look at there are if you look at the elderberry syrup market, there are hundreds of of small to medium to large uh manufacturers of elderberry syrup, everybody from you know somebody local that just makes it in their kitchen up to up to the samba calls of the world, right? So, where are all these people getting their elderberries if nobody's growing it, right? So so the answer was they're importing them, right? So you are getting exactly what you said at the beginning of the podcast, Joe. You're getting an imported dehydrated berry that has been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long, yeah, and and then they're bringing it over and they're producing it with a dehydrated berry. And that there's a couple problems with that that we saw, certainly. One, there's no standard for how much water to put into the product to reconstitute it. So a lot of times when we and we have tried, we have tried dozens of commercial elderberry syrups on the market. A lot of times we were finding it's just super watery. Like, what like what is going on here? So it just seemed very diluted to us. The second problem with that is the minute you dehydrate a berry, it loses up to 30% of the nutritional value of the berry.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:So cooking it, it it you are cooking it really.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly right. That's exactly right. So it's it's it really was an inferior product. So that kind of brings us to the elderberry. We already had the honey, right? We had plenty of honey. So we're like, we said, I told my wife, I said, I'm just gonna make a small planting of elderberries. We put 50 plants in the ground six years ago, and it was just for us, my immediate family, and friends that asked for it. We would provide them with elderberry syrup. And when we started making that and kind of passing it out to family and friends, we couldn't make it fast enough. It was like, it was like, man, this is the product I remember as a kid. This is what we this is the this is the pure product that that everybody was looking for, but it just was not really commercially available. So since that year, we have been putting in the ground two to three thousand elderberry plants every year. And we have expanded into a second farm, and we're just I just tilled up three acres of of ground that's gonna be planted next year.
SPEAKER_00:So that is so exciting. Now, I just as a point of reference, uh I'm down here in Southern California. Sure. We have a plant that I've always called Mexican elder, and it's it's a kind of a scrubby tree, a tall bush. Not it, it it um it makes a berry, it it goes dormant early, like they're already starting to go dormant. They're one of the first things to get their leaves back on, usually in January. Um, they'll put a they'll put a berry up, but it's really small. Um and usually by the time they get ripe, they're already starting to dry up. Um, is that a viable elderberry or is that something that you wouldn't mess with?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know elderberry, I've never that is not a plant that I am familiar with. Got it. Okay, so that is not the typical lifestyle or life cycle, I'm sorry, of of the elderberry plant that we grow. We actually grow six varieties of elderberry. Okay. Um, and we we did a test plant of about 12 varieties and and stuck with the six that grow better the best around here. What's in Southern California, it that very well could be an elderberry, but I will also tell you there are several look-alike plants. Um, so you got to be a little careful about that because there are some that look very much like elderberry, but they're actually poisonous.
SPEAKER_00:So got it. And I haven't ever eaten these. I just it's like they grow wild, they seem to be pretty hardy. I'm like, well, it'd be neat if I could harvest these, but right now I just let them be. I'm learning more than you know, I don't just naturally go, oh, I think this is a thing. So what is the like you're on the east coast? Where exactly are you?
SPEAKER_01:So we're actually in northern Indiana.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, oh you're you're Midwest. Okay. Midwest, yep. All right, and so you get uh you get snow in the winter, you get oh yeah, a lot of rain in the summer, so you're you're you have a much different climate than we get. What is the plant like? What is it is what kind of a plant is it?
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, different from the European uh variety, actually, the European variety, which is what everybody is making their product with, it's it is more of a tree. It has a central trunk and it's it's more of a short shrubby tree. The American varieties that we grow grow off of a primacane system, and they're very similar to like a black berry. Oh they send up new shoots every year. Okay, and and then you get these clusters of berries. The berries themselves are about the size of a pea, so they are very, very small, but they grow in they grow in large clusters. Uh, and then um, and then once, yeah, once we harvest it, the plants die back and they go dormant in the in the winter.
SPEAKER_00:They're smooth, they don't have any thorns or anything, so they're not. That's correct. That's correct. That way, all right. Interesting. I'll do more research on that. Yep. They require a lot of water, or how how do you take care of them? 100%.
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, you mentioned about the rain earlier. Yeah, uh, yes, we generally get a lot of rain. Uh northern Indiana right now is actually which you're probably like, oh, that's every year for us. We're actually in an exceptional drought right now, right? Right, exactly. That is not normal for Indiana to be in an exceptional drought. So it's been a very, very dry. So we have irrigation running to all of our plants.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, and in periods of dry drought like this, we're always watering. So yeah, they they are a plant.
SPEAKER_00:So they're like a regular berry in that sense. Most berries want a lot of water, anyways.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. And where you're gonna find the elderberries, if they're growing wild, primarily you'll find them in creek beds, along ditches, stuff like that. Is it's because they really, really do like water. You almost can't water them enough. I mean, they can live in standing water for a period of time and be totally fine. So, yeah, they they really they really need the water.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting. And how do you harvest them? Are you just harvest them all by hand?
SPEAKER_01:It's a hundred percent by hand. So, yeah, it's about it's about a six-week period. Our different varieties ripen at different times.
SPEAKER_00:That makes it nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It does. Um, but it's still about six weeks, all hands on deck. We're out there picking them. So, our process is we we harvest in the morning, so we're picking them in the morning. Uh, in the afternoon, right after lunch, we switch to destemming. So we run them through a destemming machine, they are pressed that afternoon, and the juice that we have is frozen by night. Nice. So it is a very, very quick turnaround time. That's the other thing about elderberry is that they are such a fragile berry. They they really need very quick processing, um, and they they will go bad real fast on you. If we would even wait 24 hours and just kind of leave them out, they would all it would be a huge degradation of the quality of berry already. So it's a very quick process.
SPEAKER_00:Now, freezing is really supposed to be one of the very best ways they say buying frozen berries oftentimes is even more healthy than buying fresh berries because they're generally picked ripe and they gotta be like you said, they gotta be frozen quick or they go bad. So you're getting peak of season harvest with a frozen berry where you don't have to do that early picking and let them ripen in the box or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, exactly. Yep. So we the only thing we have to watch out for is the birds. The birds love the elderberries, and so we're out there uh before they do to kind of get the quality.
SPEAKER_00:But uh yeah, so that's a good sign, though. If that if the animals like a thing, it's probably pretty good for you, right?
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness, yeah. We have every morning we have deer and everything else walking through our elderberry fields munching on them. So yeah, it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00:So in in my products, um, I found the same thing that you did, you know, all the syrups are just full of water. Yeah, and I I find myself using what they call a concentrate, and they'll call it, you know, four to one, five to one, ten to one. And it's more of a thick product, not quite a paste, but certainly not like you just you don't just pour it out, it comes out as a more thick product. Is that yeah?
SPEAKER_01:So the only I know exactly what you're saying. So even even to get that concentrate, uh, you have to put it through a pretty extensive process, a heating process to get that, remove that water out of there. We really want to stick steer clear of that personally. Uh so what we do with our product, it's only five ingredients. Okay, so our elderberry surface five ingredients. It's the bottle is north of 80% pure elderberry juice. We also add in our raw honey from our farm, freshly pressed ginger, cylon cinnamon, and star anise. Those are the only five ingredients. We don't add any water, sugar, preservatives, and nothing. Okay, so uh it's about as about as pure of an elderberry syrup as you can.
SPEAKER_00:So saying that actually acts as a preservative, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, to some extent it does. The high sugar content in the sugar or in the honey definitely does help with a little bit preserving it. So the only thickener that we have in our elderberry syrup is the raw honey. Okay, okay, so um, and in the raw honey, it's about 15% of the bottle. So um that is the only thickener. So if you're if you're comparing it to like um a sambacall or something like that that has thickeners, raw sugar, all this other stuff with it, it's it's words you can't pronounce, yeah. It it and that's really been an educational thing for us because a lot of folks will say the same thing to us, like, oh, it's not as thick as my samba call or some of these other varieties. And it's just more of an education thing. Well, look at the back of the you know, look at the ingredients. That right there, that's a thickener, you know, stuff like that. So so it's not even it's a better it thick thick does not translate to better necessarily.
SPEAKER_00:Agreed, agreed. So well, that's that's that's amazing. So um you you start out with bees, and I I would love to have another conversation with you just about the bees, because sure that that's certainly as important of a of an element, a totally different conversation, but um with the honey. So are are the bees pollinating your elderberries as well?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they elderberries are pretty self-pollinating as long as you have a um as long as you have a uh cross-pollinator plant. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So we and we alternate rows with cross-pollinators with each other, but the bees do work blueberries where they have uh they grow one kind and then they have so many plants they put a different one in there.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly right, exactly. So elderberries the bees do work the elderberry flower, um, but bees are about what they pollinate. They they they want to go after the best nectar and the best pollen sources that they can, right? They're trying to get absolutely yeah, they're trying to get ready for winter and bulk up. So yeah, um, elder flower does not have virtual, it has virtually no nectar quality to it.
SPEAKER_00:It does have so interested in those trees.
SPEAKER_01:They do have that it does have pollen, so the elder flowers do have pollen that the bees work. Um, but uh but yeah, I've noticed the same.
SPEAKER_00:I don't generally see a lot of bees. We have wild bees around here, yeah. And I I look at the plants that the bees tend to hang out on, and they like the fruit trees, they like the plum trees and the peach trees, but I generally don't see them swarming around the elders, yeah. Or whatever it is I have.
SPEAKER_01:And that and it very well could be an elderberry plant. Yeah, it it just doesn't produce any nectar to speak of. It's it's a level. Uh you couldn't you couldn't get a honey crop uh uh off of elderberry plants.
SPEAKER_00:I've never heard of elderberry honey anyway, so it makes sense, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's probably why. But um, so yeah, they work them a little bit, but it's it's just kind of sporadic.
SPEAKER_00:So when you decided to do this, like you went from growing bees to gee, it'd be nice to have this elderberry syrup like we used to, to let's plant some elderberries. That's a big leap from that to I've got a commercial farm and we're making a product. So why don't you tell us about how you went from one to the next?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I I was actually um while I was running the bee business and growing that, I was actually working full-time in a corporate position. Imagine, yeah. So I I when the bee business got to a level where um it was just no longer like I can't do both mentality. Uh, I ended up leaving that corporate position and just pursuing the bee business. And I did that for about four years, just strictly on the bee business. And then when we started the elderberry planting and and that just grew so rapidly, it was like the the biggest light bulb moment ever that there is such a market for this, and and it's a market that it was like people, you know, folks want elderberry syrup, yeah, and they're buying elderberry syrup at really a record pace. I mean, especially since uh you know, I hate to bring it up, but COVID, there was a lot of folks were looking for alternative ways to stay healthy. They don't necessarily want to go and you know do vaccines and everything else, they're looking for natural remedies, sure. So that really gave elderberry syrup a boost, and it also gave a lot of studies. Um, a lot of studies came out during COVID about elderberry syrup and the and the benefits of it. So it was kind of just this epitome, uh, this moment of um this epiphany of like, man, if we like this elderberry so much, and we just kept growing. So, like I said, that the second year we only had 50 plants in the ground the first year, and the second the second year we did 3,000 plants. Wow, and like I said, we're doing thousands of plants every year, and we almost cannot keep up with the demand because once people are starting to realize like there is a different level of quality of elderberry syrups, it's it's not even a selling thing, it's just an education thing. It's like if you can understand that, like what the differences are, it's it speaks for itself.
SPEAKER_00:So most of your customers are just individuals that are just taking it for personal use, or do you have people like me that are formulators, make products with them?
SPEAKER_01:I yeah, I don't have any formulators. We uh it's mostly just families, right? So we yeah, we we sell it uh um we're on Amazon, Walmart. Uh we have uh stores locally in Indiana, northern Indiana, several stores we sell it to. Our own website um is a great resource, and it can also be purchased on there.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but so how'd you get into Walmart? Now that's a that's a market that you don't just walk into.
SPEAKER_01:So it's it's actually on Walmart.com. So a little bit easy, it leaves much easier to break into Walmart.com and start selling on there than actually in stores. But um, so as of right now, it we wouldn't even be able to keep up with Walmart, anyways.
SPEAKER_00:Generally, it's not a little farm product, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And we would have we'd have to have hundreds of acres at that point. So maybe we'll get there one day, but yeah, we're we are super focused on maintaining the quality of this product, and that's that that will never go away. I don't care if we have 500 acres uh of elderberries, the quality is gonna be the same as it was when we made it for our own family, and that's gonna stay the same.
SPEAKER_00:So so now there's two elements, you know. Uh there's the farming and the harvesting of the food product, yeah, and preserving it, and then there's manufacturing big deal, a food product. That's an entirely separate business with an entirely separate set of rules and equipment and expertise. So now that's a whole nother transition. So, how'd you get from one to the other there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. That was a big learning curve for us for sure. So to grow from to go from a small-scale grower when I'm talking 50 plants to to over 25,000 plants is what I think we have in the ground right now. That is a big leap, and it doesn't happen overnight. So we actually partnered with the University of Georgia. Oh, nice and in the and their department, and we did certified lab testing, shelf life stability studies, um, and then just worked with them on manufacturing compliance, uh, food products and things like that. So they what a blessing. Really, they helped guide us through the entire process of making sure that our product is is shelf stable as long as it needs to be, and that we're manufacturing it to the standards that we need to.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's amazing. So, how did they approach you? Did you reach out?
SPEAKER_01:We we went to them. Yeah, they okay. The University of Georgia actually has a um a department that are they are very familiar with elderberry specifically.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:So they yeah, they they've got a couple projects working uh on the research side uh of elderberries, kind of just scratching the surface on on what elderberry can do and what what the benefits to the body and stuff like that. But then they also have uh in that same department, they also kind of teach you um how to preserve it, just different things like that, and how to how to how to manufacture.
SPEAKER_00:That is fantastic. So, your manufacturing facility, I assume you started out in your kitchen and uh like so many of us do, and then how did it go from there?
SPEAKER_01:100%. Yeah, you nailed it. So we were making our first year batches just straight in our kitchen, right? Uh in a in a in a 15-gallon stainless steel tank, actually. Gotcha. So yeah, from that, and now we have a 400-gallon tank that we're running out of now. It's still it we still do it here on the farm. It's just in a it's just in a building that we had built for specifically for manufacturing.
SPEAKER_00:So I love it. So it's it's grown quite a bit. Mostly family, or do you are you hiring outside people now? How's your business structure?
SPEAKER_01:Do during the harvest season, it is it is we need as many, as much help as we can possibly get. Uh, so yeah, we definitely hire during that six-week window. The rest of the season, just manufacturing and stuff like that, it actually is almost all family.
SPEAKER_00:Nice. I love that. So with with things like, you know, as again, I'm a small little cottage thing too. It's just me and my wife right now. And uh we we've grown and shrunk as as things have needed to, but I I've been battling my own health issues right now. So I'm we shrunk back down again. It's just me and her making stuff. But the point is, is there's levels of you know, technology and equipment and expense that you can do. You can literally hand pour bottles and then you can have a whole line that runs thousands of bottles an hour, um, and everything in between. So uh what's been your progression there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. So you're you nailed it. So that 15-gallon tank that we had initially, it was all it was all hand poured, right? So every every bottle done that, I know it, yeah. So it's like, okay, this is gonna take forever. So and it was fine for the first year or so, but then you know, when you're sitting down, like I need I need 500 bottles here, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You get carpal tunnel going on pretty quick after a while.
SPEAKER_01:It gets very, very tedious. So, yeah, it just systematically we said, okay, what's next? What once where's our current bottleneck? Yeah, let's go get that piece of equipment. Uh, so from from the from the larger tank sizes that we've had, and we have grown as we've needed to on that. We now have a full uh filling line. Nice, it's all automated. So the bottles all get filled. There's no, yeah, is the least amount of hands that touch these bottles, the better for us because it just speeds up manufacturing. But um probably has less mistakes too. Yeah, no doubt about it. So, yeah, it's it's it's running pretty well, which is why we can really keep it in-house and just keep it with the family at this point.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. And have you run into like I I know that during COVID, I ran into a lot of supply chain issues, especially with things like containers and seals and things like that. Do you run into any of those problems?
SPEAKER_01:Not really with not really with the containers. Okay. So yeah, we we we we put everything in glass bottles, and we always have about five pallets on hand at one time. We don't really like to go below that just in case we do run into issues. But uh there was there were longer lead times, but it was all we were always able to get get the bottles when we needed them. But then the other thing is we produce all the elderberry juice, we produce all the honey.
SPEAKER_00:All right, you got most of the supply chain right in your own back pocket.
SPEAKER_01:And the funny thing is the folks that are making it with the imported dried dehydration, they were scrambling to try to find it because it's like everybody wanted you know to make elderberry syrup, yeah. Uh, and that was the only way they knew how to do it was these dehydrated berries. So, luckily for us, we uh as growers, uh, we kind of just had a steady supply coming in.
SPEAKER_00:Do you ever get approached by people that want to make a similar product to buy your raw materials?
SPEAKER_01:I have not, uh, and I I really wouldn't even have anything to sell up.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I wouldn't imagine you would.
SPEAKER_01:I just yeah, no, it is yeah, we we are like this year, for example, we were like, okay, come on, berries, you gotta get right here because we needed juice. We needed to restock that freezer uh because we were running pretty low on juice at that point. So um, yeah, that the our business really has grown, you know, thankfully, so well in the last couple of years, it's just it's our biggest challenge right now is keeping up with the demand and keeping enough elderberry juice on hand to to satisfy the orders.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, what a beautiful story. I I I love to hear uh success stories like this. You're living the dream. I mean, really, you you uh and and your family. Um, how many kids you got? I mean, how many people are involved in the operation here?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I my wife and I have two kids, but they're both they're both too young to actually do any work. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:So it's just you and the wife mostly.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, it's my it's me and my wife. Uh, I have my mom, I have my couple sisters, okay, and I have some bro, a brother-in-law. So all right. Uh, yeah, we we're staying pretty busy with keeping it in the family, and we haven't I love it. We're we we still talk to each other, so that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna say, you know, those kind of things either bring you closer together or send send somebody packing. So that's exactly it's working out this way. Well, um, is there any kind of a central message that you know you've you've brought a lot to the table, and I'm I can't tell you how impressed I am that there are actually people out there committed to quality the way that you guys are. Um, like I said, as a formulator, I grow some of the ingredients and I always say, look, I know what I grew and I know how I grew it. And I can tell you the quality of that. But when I buy from another place, unless I've been to their farm and get to know the people, which I do best as I can. Oh, sure. You can only do what you can do. And um, I always say outside of that, I do my best to source the best ingredients, but um really it's it's so refreshing to to meet somebody who has that same uh sense of of the importance of all this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Well, I certainly appreciate that. I take that as a huge compliment. But yeah, like I said, we started this off as our family thing, just to supply our family, and and we are not deviating no matter how big we ever get from that same level of quality. The I think the last thing I would just leave with with your listeners is if you're interested about elderberry syrup, if that's you know, I'm sure you probably most people have heard of it, whether they've taken it or not. But if you've heard of elderberry syrup, um, we really made our website and designed it purposefully to be an educational one. Uh, so the website is just heartland elderberryfarms.com. Um, and it's really we do a pretty we try to do a really good job of uh doing some comparisons between dried berries and fresh berries and the and the potency and just different things like that. So it's not just trying to sell anything, it's really more for an educational. But the other the other thing I Would say is if you just I challenge you to look at your own label. Like if you take elderberry syrup, just flip that label around. And if that first ingredient is water, then you know right then and there it's made with a dehydrated berry that's imported. So um, and and I will just tell you if that's the case, there are better options out there. Elderberry syrup, it's not the cheapest thing in the world. Uh, and I and while we really do strive to price it uh very competitively, even though we make it with pure juice, um, you know, if you're gonna buy it, you know, maybe just most people want the best quality they can get. It's it's more potent. We've had it third-party tested for potency, uh, and it really it's through the roof in terms of just using water and dehydrated berry.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I can tell you this. I'm going to uh locate a source and I'm gonna purchase some and I'm gonna make a batch of uh I make a um respiratory support elixir. Yes, and elderberry is one of the key components of it. Um, and I'm gonna make a batch with it and try it out for myself. So um I'm you know we do small batch things, so it's it's um I'm I'm right there with you. I I I'll let you know, but I I suspect I'm gonna really um notice a difference. Um, Russell, it's been an absolute pleasure to have this conversation. I would love to come back and talk about your bees another time. Um great. But uh just thank you for being a part of our of our community here. And um I just that's it. I'm really grateful. Yeah, Joe, I appreciate you having me. I appreciate the conversation. Fantastic. Well, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumba, and I want to thank our listeners for making this all possible, and we will see you next time.
