Spruce Mountain Blueberry: Adding value to traditional Maine products with a touch of the exotic
by MacKenzie Rawcliffe
Many believe that reinventing traditional Maine industries and adding value to the raw material rural Maine produces, is the key to revitalizing the state’s economy. Making that change successfully is not always easy and requires a lot of creativity, but sometimes all you need is a little exotic flavor to spice things up. In the rocky blueberry fields of Spruce Mountain in West Rockport, Molly Sholes has done just that. After growing up in North Carolina and spending summers in Maine, she spent 19 years in Madras, India. Raising her children, while her husband worked for the U.S foreign service.
When they finally moved back to the U.S they bought a 150 year old farmhouse in Maine. Her husband fell in love with the house and Molly was excited about the blueberry fields that surrounded the property. “I loved the idea of making jams and jellies out of something wild that you helped grow from the rocky soil, to feel like you’ve really done something,” she says. Although she knew nothing about blueberries at first, she quickly learned from locals and workshops how to do everything from raking to processing. Her goal was to produce a product that combined two of her favorite things, the spicy chutney from India and the sweet juicy blueberries from her summers on Vinalhaven. “Having been a foreign service wife, the idea of coming back and connecting with the farm land and a community appealed to me.” Her Blueberry Chutney is the star of a now full and tasty lineup of blueberry products.
Since starting in 1985 her business has grown into a profitable, award winning enterprise. When she began, she says the Maine Specialty Food Producers Association was a huge help. She attended as many workshops and seminars as she could to make sure she understood all the ins and outs of the industry. Now she has got it down, and although she can not rake as much as she used to she is enjoying her “retirement occupation.”
She sells mostly to smaller specialty stores and at regional product shows, but she has seen a huge increase in mail order sales. A friend of her son’s designed her website www.sprucemtnblueberries.com, and she believes it encourages visitors to the state to reorder products after they get home. Her products are also listed on several Maine shopping websites.
She believes strongly in the value of creating networks between producers and businesses. State supported outlets for agricultural products help people sell their products and network with other Maine producers at the same time. Molly believes that supporting local agriculture not only provides jobs and keeps money in the area economy but more importantly it helps make preserving agricultural land and the rural landscape viable.