The Origin Story
BORN RIGHT HERE. GROWN RIGHT HERE.
The marionberry is an Oregon original. It didn't happen by accident — it happened because of this place, these people, and a lot of patience. Here's the story.
In the 1940s, a USDA horticulturist and Oregon State University Alum named George Waldo set out to do something modest: breed a better blackberry. What he ended up with was something Oregon has called its own ever since.
Working out of the Horticultural Field Station in Corvallis, Waldo crossed the Chehalem and Olallie blackberry varieties. The result was first tested in Marion County — the heart of the Willamette Valley — and the name stuck. The marionberry was officially introduced in 1956.
Seventy years later, it still grows almost exclusively here. 90% of the world's supply are grown in Oregon, up to 33 million pounds harvested annually.
A Berry That Belongs to Oregon
In Our Backyard
It Grows Here Because It was Made For Here
The marionberry is particular. It wants the long, mild summers and cool nights of the Willamette Valley. It wants volcanic soil and the kind of fog that burns off by ten in the morning. Give it all that, and it rewards you with the most complex blackberry you've ever tasted — deep, earthy, a little wine-like, never just sweet. It earns the title "cabernet of blackberries".
The growing season is short. Harvest runs roughly six to eight weeks in mid-summer — late June through August. Farmers train the canes onto trellis wires, wait all year, and then move fast. The berries don't hold. You pick them ripe or you miss them.
That urgency is part of what makes the marionberry special. It doesn't compromise. It doesn't travel well fresh. It's built for the people who are already here — who thoughtfully put it in the can, the bottle, and the 42lb bag-in-box for everyone else to enjoy.(You're welcome!)
Oregon Grown
We Don't Take That Lightly
Oregon Fruit has been in Salem since 1935. We've watched the Willamette Valley through a lot of seasons. We know which farms do things right. We know what a good year looks like — and what a hard one costs.
When we process a marionberry, we're not just processing fruit. We're capturing this place. The soil, the weather, the growers who've been farming the same ground for generations. That's terroir — the same concept that makes a wine taste like the valley it came from. The marionberry's depth, that earthy wine-like complexity, doesn't come from a recipe. It comes from the ground it grows in. That's not marketing. That's just what's true.
Oregon brewers understand this instinctively. Gigantic Brewing built their Marionberry Lemon Tart Sour around it. Wild Ride Brewing did the same with their award-winning Tarty to the Party Marionberry Sour Ale. Portland Cider Co. worked it into their Pacific Berry cider. When you taste the marionberry in those drinks, you're tasting the Willamette Valley. There's no shortcut to that.
Shared with the World
From Our Backyard to Your Operation
The whole point of growing something this good is getting it into the right hands. We've spent a long time figuring out how to do that.
For commercial brewers, beverage makers, bakers, sorbet and gelato producers, and commercial kitchens, our Marionberry Aseptic Puree delivers consistent, true marionberry flavor at scale — clean, shelf-stable, and ready to work hard back of house.
For restaurants and coffee shops, our Marion Blackberry Shelf Stable Smooth Pourable Fruit is built for front-of-house use. Pour it into lemonades and iced teas, blend it into slushies and shakes, or drizzle it over ice cream, yogurt, and desserts. It's the kind of thing that turns a menu item into a signature.
And for bartenders, our Marion Blackberry Unsweetened Puree is exactly what it sounds like — no added sugar, full marionberry character, ready to go into cocktails and mocktails that actually taste like something.
Three products. One berry. All Oregon.
We're Proud to Share It
April is our moment to say it plainly: the marionberry is ours. Not in a territorial way. In a proud, quiet, we-actually-grew-it way. Come visit Marion County in July. Taste it for yourself in our Marionberry Pies (the official state pie of Oregon) or in Sugarpine Drive-In's seasonal Marionberry Sorbet. And bring the taste of Oregon home to your own customers with our shelf stable purees and pourable fruits.
The marionberry. Oregon's berry. Cultivated here. Grown here. Canned and bottled here. We've been doing this since 1935, and we plan to for generations to come.
Oregon Fruit Co. — Salem, Oregon — Est. 1935
