Elderberry and the fun that can be had in a family business.
Innovative Natural Solutions, or INS for short, has been a very dependable source for high quality berries for Norm’s Farms. Even better, we really hit it off with Devon, Brittany, and Ed, finding that we had much in common regarding family, business and our sense of humor. You’ve got to have a big sense of humor when you start your own business or you’ll never survive all the emotional roller coasters that come with being an entrepreneur! About a year ago we began exploring the possibility of creating a partnership between the two companies. INS and Norm’s Farms have mutual interests and mutual hurdles: We are both passionate about the value of elderberry as an emerging commodity crop in the US and we are both passionate about the opportunity inherent with Norm’s Farms as a flag-ship brand that brings the American elderberry to the market in a big way. Coincidentally, we are also both in the same stage of business development; we both have a proven concept and the market seems both ready and anxious for us to grow…if only we could find the help and supplies we need to succeed!
Over the year that INS and Norm’s Farms have been courting each other we’ve realized that we are both the help the other needs. Together, we have a tremendous opportunity to create a vertically integrated business that can aggregate the elderberries grown by the small family farms throughout the US and deliver them to you and your family in the form of the high-quality products you love and want. Devon, Brittany, Ed, and their team members, Ryan and Lewis flew out to meet with us last week and we made our partnership official! We took time to celebrate with our other critical partners like GW Stanley, Randy Maness and Tony Haywood with Got To Be NC and Ron Taylor of D'Vine Foods (we are pictured above at Ron's Lu-Mil Vineyard) and then got down to work. Our little one family team of three has become a two family team of eight and Norm’s Farms is well on its way.