Ancient Grains and Blueberries

Now -- this is good blueberry identification on a baby food product.  Look at the green section on the upper right hand side and you will see the other enhancing statements including "ancient grains."

Have you noticed the number of new products on the supermarket shelf with "ancient grains" on the package and ingredients such as: chia, flaxseed and quinoa in the ingredient statement?  According to Mintel Global New Product Database (GNPD), the  number is around 1,000 worldwide.  Since 2015 we have seen about 50 blueberry-ancient grain products introduced. 

What is an ancient grain?  There really is not an official definition for this but my personal guess is: grains and cereals that have been historically consumed since ancient times.  These ancient grains are differentiated from the "modern grains" which are in high volume mass production.

Flaxseed, chia, quinoa, kamut, amaranth teff and others.

What is the connection to blueberries?  Blueberries and blueberry ingredients share the same type of "health halo" as ancient grains such as flaxseed, chia and quinoa. Blueberries are a great addition to foods which utilize the addition of ancient grains as functional and on-pack consumer attraction.  That is my guess!

Here is an example of a pet food product with ancient grains.

Anyway, here is a collection of the interesting blueberry and ancient grain products around the world.

Companies using ancient grains are natural targets for blueberry usage.  You will see more blueberry ancient grain products in the future.