Derry Duff Farm Grows Aronia Berries on Marginal Irish Land
Aronia juice produced from dark purple berries grown on marginal land in West Cork is now available online and in health food stores and independent retailers for €6.95 per 330ml bottle. Steve Collins, a medical doctor with a PhD in nutrition, cultivates the fruit on a 54-hectare organically certified farm located high in the Shehy Mountains near Bantry.
Collins runs PhyterBerry Aronia to bring the product to market after purchasing the remote, deserted Derry Duff Farm with his wife Claire in 2005. The enterprise produces a diverse range of food including Dexter beef, pigs, chickens, bees, and blueberries. Collins sought crops that could thrive in poor quality, rocky soil before turning to aronia seeds obtained from the Agroforestry Trust in England.
Nutritional Attributes and Public Health Goals
Aronia berries contain high levels of polyphenols, which provide antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that support the immune system and help prevent disease. Collins focused on the crop after examining its nutritional profile, drawing on his 35 years of experience in international development researching and treating malnutrition in Africa.
“There are two things that really move me to be active. One is the public health crisis. In Africa, it was starvation, and now in Ireland, it’s metabolic syndrome,” Collins said. Metabolic syndrome combines risk factors such as abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, poor blood glucose control, and high cholesterol, which increase the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke.
Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in Ireland
Metabolic syndrome affects a significant portion of the aging population in the country. According to the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing in 2022, the condition is highly prevalent in older adults, with 40% of the population over 50 meeting the diagnostic criteria.
Standard medical recommendations to prevent or reduce metabolic syndrome include regular exercise, avoiding smoking, and adopting a Mediterranean diet high in fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, legumes, and olive oil. A longitudinal study conducted in Spain over more than a dozen years linked high polyphenol intake to a 20% lower risk of mortality.
Expanding the Irish Grower Network
To scale production beyond Derry Duff Farm, Collins is building a sustainable network of growers across locations such as Killarney, Cape Clear, Lismore, and Wexford.
“PhyterBerry is set up to ultimately manufacture and make aronia products from locally grown aronia berries. We want to sell more, so we need suppliers,” Collins said. “If you want to grow aronia, if you’ve got marginal land and you want to grow it, then we will give you a route to market.”
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