Why Nordic Wild Blueberries Are So Expensive | So Expensive Food | Business Insider

Bilberries, or Nordic wild blueberries, are sweet purple berries that grow wild in the forests of Nordic countries. But bilberries are very fragile. After just two days after harvesting, their nutritional value begins to fade.
To ensure the tiny berries hold on to their precious antioxidants, companies in Finland spend entire days sorting and freezing them at precise temperatures. That's because bilberries are highly sought after in the health-food industry, where they are sold in the form of juices or supplements that can reach over $200 per kilogram.
So what makes these tiny berries so nutritious? And why are they so expensive?
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Why Nordic Wild Blueberries Are So Expensive | So Expensive Food | Business Insider

[@emilekroth100]

Didn't know they where called bilberries, here in the Nordic countries everyone refers to them as blueberries. The other large blue berries are usually called fake blueberries or american blueberries.

[@peeparoni8634]

ive mainly heard of them as bush blueberries, pensasmustikka

[@BasicEndjo]

billberry is made up name, original blueberry is very european and should not be eaten because its racist

[@myboysd5772]

@@BasicEndjo Ahh but the racism berries taste real good tho

[@amadeuz8161]

or bush blueberry

[@elmerthiendoesgames9061]

I know the big ones that are pale inside as Canadian blueberries.

[@morkkin]

As a swedish person who has picked blueberries my whole life i can really relate to this. The nordic blueberries is so sweet and wonderful.

[@TheBanterBandit]

I just went to my freezer to fetch myself a bowl picked in Borgarfjörður, Iceland. The taste of heaven!

[@viharatoo7827]

Is there any vacancies for the same?

[@blablup1214]

I don't like the seweet ones. The sour ones are better 😁

[@The_Savage_Wombat]

Is there anything about Nordic countries that's not much better than the rest of the messed up planet?

[@magnuslarsen3791]

I’ve lived in southern Norway some of my life and I can agree that they taste wonderful

[@KidTheFail]

I get that billberries are super expensive, but as someone who can pick them for free in the woods four steps from my house, this is kinda hilarious. I think I have about six kilos in the freezer at the moment 😂

[@Mandarinen]

I know! 😆

[@freelancepear87kakkoka11]

i had no idea that they were valuable at all, like yeah they can get quite expensive in the grocery stores but the fact that even in our larger cities you wont have to walk much to find them (and not to talk about the countryside). i should go and make some bliberry pie once again.

[@duzzzz94]

I know! I have an operation every summer to consume the rest of the last year's patch to have space for the new ones.

[@2510LuL]

This is blowing my mind too, were almost all forest here by area in Sweden and the majority of that forest is covered with blueberry shrubs as far as the eye can see. Thousands upon thousands of square km

[@sheep1ewe]

In sweden it was like 5 cents (/50 US cents) when i was a kid, few years ago it was like 15:- (1,5 EUR/$) i taught 30:-/ 3 Euro/kilo was hillarious expensive, but still not enough to even concidering selling seen to the actual amonth of work gathering one kilogram where i live if one does not hawe it for livinghood. Lingonberries are a lot more useful in my opinion, but i won't sell them.

[@vanyadolly]

I remember the first time I had "american" shrub blueberries, and I've never been so disappointed. 🤣 Our blueberries taste so much better.

[@alexcontreras6103]

there is about 14 plus species that grow between Canada and USA. There are wild Berries in Alaska that are small and far more flavorful but they can't be scaled.

[@masalps]

@@asoncalledvoonch2210 They're not really from America, they're just called that here to distinguish.

[@JH-lo9ut]

Same here. You discover that the inside is basically white. FAKE!

[@trassel1104]

@@asoncalledvoonch2210 i think you misunderstood. They mean that in Nordic countries the big pale inside blueberries are often called American blueberries, but the name doesn’t mean those are necessarily from America(I actually don’t know where they’re from but probably farmed in some European country), it’s just a name to set them apart from the local blueberries.

[@ianbruce6515]

I live in Maine. Wild blueberries are a major crop here. They are called 'low bush blueberries' and are harvested with rakes like Finnish blueberries. What you call American Blueberries are what we call 'high bush blueberries' and they are farmed in States to the South of us.

[@Lappmogel]

If you're living in a norway/sweden/finland you can pick a years worth for yourself working just a few hours a day at a leasiure pace. A 20l bucket is picked and cleaned in a few hours with a basic kit. And you can pick chantarelles at the same time. Ofc its goes from a nice stroll in the forest to a strenous chore if you're doing more then that, like those workers are doing.

[@BasicEndjo]

yeah maybe if you live in the city lol, i fill two 20 L buckets in 2 hours

[@Lappmogel]

@@BasicEndjo Good for you mate.

[@KamiKaZantA]

@@Lappmogel Har ni fått mycket lappmögel än?

[@pumpkin2477]

I love allemansrätten so much

[@BasicEndjo]

@@pumpkin2477 why

[@tiCajfy]

I'm Finnish and I live in the capitol area of Finland, which is the most densely populated area here. Next to my home there are forests and literally 2 minute walk away the forest floor is full of wild blueberries. And we also have something called "every mans right" thanks to which it's completely legal for anyone to go and pick as much of them as they want. There is also quite a bit of wild raspberries, but not as much as wild blueberries.

[@okkkop]

@@BasicEndjo Damn that's a really salty Swede, chill out meatball boy.

[@c.Orange]

@@BasicEndjo go fluff yourself.

[@derke123]

@@BasicEndjo might be because finland and sweden were one country back in the day 🤪

[@Pyorittelisinkohan]

@@BasicEndjo At least we don't have no-go zones and car fires 🤷

[@kasperilindroos2370]

@@BasicEndjo Lmao what have we ever done to you

[@elvenkind6072]

I'm a Norwegian, and I didn't taste the type of "blueberry" that are more then twice the size, but white inside, until I was about 40 years old. And I don't think they taste like blueberry at all, but another berry that also grow wild here, and actually what is called "bilberry", or "blokkbær". They are also white inside and not popular at all, despite being very healthy. In North-America they are growing in the wild, so more commonly picked and eaten there I think. Anyway, I remember as a kid, walking in the forest, sitting among berry bushes and stuffing my face with the blueberries, making my hands and half my face purple. When trying to pick a lot of them, it's almost impossible to not eat at the same time, ending up with a half bucket instead of a full one, because they taste better then candy. 😋

[@MessoriusPrime]

There’s two types, domesticated high bush and wild low bush. Low bush are tiny, and sweet.

[@annabackman3028]

@@MessoriusPrime The berry we refer to as 'Bilberry' is the Vaccinium Myrtillus, in Sweden called 'blåbär' (blueberry). In both America and Europe (I assume northern Russia too) we can find 'bog bilberry', Vaccinium uliginosum, in Swedish 'odon'. Edible, but don't taste much. I would never pick only bog bilberies, but I can put some in the bilbery bucket. They look more like American blueberries and are white inside. If you compare how MUCH taste there is when you compare, American blueberries come between bog blueberries and bilberries. In my opinion (tried three sorts of blueberries, not much difference) American blueberries are much closer to bog blueberries than bilberies. What we refer to, as "American blueberries" are in fact several species, from around only 30 cm (a foot) tall to 2 meters (9 feet approx) or about. They naturally grow in different environments, temperatures etc. And they don't taste exactly the same. I guess the sweetest, most flavorful would be used for domestication. But they seem to not taste anything near bilberries anyway.

[@catlikemeew]

Aldri hørt om blokkbær…er det ille?

[@metalgearsolidsnake6978]

Spiderman no way home

[@annabackman3028]

@@catlikemeew Read my previous reply. Vaccinium uliginosum.

[@Ammiisa]

Well, actually in Finland bilberries and other forest berries are very cheap, because anyone can go to the forest and pick them up themselves. This is part of ”jokamiehen oikeudet”, translates in english as ”every man’s rights”. It means, that we can all enjoy nature’s benefits equally, including berries, mushrooms or just hiking around in forests and natural parks, and it’s all free of charge. So it is definitely much cheaper to go to the nearest forest and pick berries to one’s own freezer, than buy berris from a grocery store.

[@dickinsonia4132]

Kyllä, mutta videon otsikko viittaa juurikin kauppoihin

[@eddiesiroky1534]

Its called " free roaming law"

[@fidenemini111]

@@eddiesiroky1534 This is the lasting hunter-gatherer tradition in Northern Europe 😬.

[@destinychild4659]

But if you live in the big city and far away from forest, they are pretty expensive in markets and grocery stores.

[@0626love]

I only hope FInland will keep away from NATO (a terrorist organization - look what they did in Ukraine starting from 2014) - western globalists will destroy the country and claim the forests and land... Greetings from Estonia! (bad situation atm - globalists at the top, the forests get destroyed).

[@GothClassics]

When I first moved to the UK I bought a pack of blueberries because I saw it on the shelf and they were MASSIVE. Got back home to have some and they just ended up tasting like water and not the kind of blueberries I've grown up with. Same when I moved to the Czech Republic then to the US and now in Portugal. It is safe to say that the blueberry in Scandinavia is far superior in flavour.

[@mgrove5759]

Try not buying them from a damn shop then and perhaps they wont taste like water.

[@GothClassics]

@@mgrove5759 wow. Way to miss the mark ROFL

[@QcDiablo]

@@GothClassics From what I know there are usually two kinds of blueberries (I from Canada so that probably applies to the US at least), the big ones with white flesh like the ones you tasted and wild ones that are much smaller and sweeter.

[@GothClassics]

@@QcDiablo that makes sense. I always assumed they were farmed

[@Mmmm-lx9vb]

@@QcDiablo The big ones were mutated for farming purposes

[@Ama-Elaini]

10:25 A small cultural thing to add: in the ancient Finnish faith the nature was even considered holy. Blueberries are linked to Mielikki, she was one of our deities back then. It's not that much of a surprise when the forests are very bountiful in the summer. The times may have changed but we still have that deep respect left, along with the traditions.

[@SeminarioMAE]

Sounds primitive, glad that the Swedes brought civilization and Christianity to. Finland.

[@Ama-Elaini]

@@SeminarioMAE You can have both, civilization and respect for nature. 😊

[@opportunity3278]

@@SeminarioMAE excuse me? Christianity is primitive if anything(or any other religion). Having respect for the world you live in is basic decency. Old faiths like this just show how truly corrupt you religious people are that you don't even respect others and their culture, truly savages.

[@ahkkariq7406]

Interesting. In Norway, the other blue berry that grows wild (and has a white inside/Vaccinium uliginosum) is called mikkelsbær in some parts of the country.

[@taeandsugakookies]

These taste so much better than any other blueberries. I have so many memories going picking berries with grandma and making blueberry milk and pies.

[@marfa.h3526]

Blueberry milk is so good but I usually just skip the milk and add the sugar.

[@danielmalinen6337]

In Finland, wild blueberries are free if you pick them yourself or if your relative picks them and gives them to you because the relative's own freezer is full. But here in Finland, you never have to buy blueberries from the store and therefore Finnish grocery strories rarely sell them unprocessed. Products made from blueberries, such as blueberry kissel, are a different matter, but their price is also not high in Finland because it is easy for Finns to make them themselves. However, sometimes the problem with the blueberries is hired blueberry pickers who sometimes come into people's yards to pick blackcurrants and garden blueberries and the most problematic thing in this case is that there is no solution to report it to their employer and asks them to instruct their employees not to go into people's yards and gardens.

[@jens1924]

This. My aunt has had this problem & it's quite annoying. Also you can usually tell where "professional" pickers have been just from the state of the bilberry bushes. They are often damaged and uprooted from those rakes, litter is also a problem often.

[@marfa.h3526]

@@jens1924 the rakes they used in this video + the way they did it was just heatbreaking.

[@erikad0511]

I love the ending... Acknowledging that it's a luxury that the forest has provided people with beautiful fruits, vegetables, herbs etc...for free so families like hers can afford a living really is a gift. I wish more people would treat all of nature with care like many Nordic people have

[@foetusdeletus6313]

Having immigrants do the dirty work for them? Lmao.

[@erikad0511]

@@foetusdeletus6313 the point is the forest provides so everyone can earn a living... Besides those people _chose_ to work there during their off-season soooo

[@foetusdeletus6313]

@@erikad0511 ah yes, they "choose" to work there. Out of sight out of mind, right?

[@erikad0511]

@@foetusdeletus6313 idk what you're implying... The video says they come from Thailand (I think) during the off season of working in rice fields, as in they chose this work for extra income

[@AzmolHossain01188a]

It's all about money, greed and politics. Only hanfdul of people cares about nature

[@SteamboatW]

Blueberry soup is also a traditional Swedish dish. It's often served at big competitions like Ski-races and marathons since it's a good natural sports drink, and can be served equally hot in winter or cold in summer.

[@BasicEndjo]

blueberry soup is traditionally not swedish, it was invented by a turk just like everything else source is svt. and sauce is brown, for my food

[@SteamboatW]

@@BasicEndjo Do Turkey even have blueberries?

[@soffa93]

@@BasicEndjo turks haven't invented shit

[@Fiffelito]

@@BasicEndjo I had no idea that Anna Maria Rückersköld (1785) was a turk. I bet mashed blueberries and blueberry cakes isn't nordic either. I remember when SVT together with SAS started their "Sweden have no culture of their own", so I just automatically think the truth is opposite of what they say or that they are hiding the truth.

[@davidjoelsson4929]

@@SteamboatW it was a joke

[@edvins8863]

Me watching this as a Swede who can pick unlimited amount these for free a 10 minute walk from me I found this hilarious 😂. I have a freezer full of them, never realized they were so sought after abroad.

[@Quzga]

Haha precis. Fullt med hallon och blåbär utanför lägenheten på sommarn

[@hurri7720]

@@Quzga , we i Finland har så mycket gemensamt med er i Sverige.

[@meme5266]

In Poland we can pick them in forest or buy from older people next to road or from fruit market. There are expensive unfortunately and there is good reason why: because picking them is pain in the ass 😂🤣😂 but worth it!

[@aLmAnZio]

As a Norwegian, I think wild blueberries are amazing. But wild raspberries! Oh damn, it is the best thing in the world. They are so, so incredibly sweet! They are a hassle to pick though!

[@daniel_is_messy]

And wild strawberries! As a child i’d pick them and string them on a piece of hay. They are so sweet and small.

[@pumpkin2477]

I am from Sweden and I could not agree more, they are amazing!!

[@ReyOfLight]

Wild raspberries are indeed the best thing ever! Luckily the Zeroh wild raspberry saft taste very much like eating the real berries 😋 I love raspberries in general though, both the flavor and scent

[@BurningLance2]

damn right wild blueberries, wild raspberry and even wild strawberries are good. heck i got some wild strawberries growing up a lil slope near the road where i live

[@Quzga]

@@daniel_is_messy same here! Such fond memories of picking wild strawberries during midsommar

[@CamillaDrakenborg]

I never knew it was so expensive. Feels weird when you have free access to it where it grows naturally. Our dog loved to roll around in the blueberries & snack on them lol

[@drozzo3211]

it feels very weird to watch this video talking about how expensive these "rare and hypernutritious" berries are. for me (a swede) i can go into any forest and find atleast a kilo during late summer/autumn.

[@freezedeve3119]

yes, those are free just go an pick them !

[@tobberino]

A kilo is an understatement, you can pick 24/7 for the entire season and not run out of berries to pick

[@0626love]

@@tobberino Never seen rakes like that as in video for raking the berries lol - do they sell those in shops as well? :D

[@tobberino]

@@0626love I actually have no idea, you can probably find them in some outdoors/wilderness shop

[@wge621]

I guess that's the difference between fruits that are easy to farm vs those that grow naturally but are difficult to farm.

[@Silver803]

I remember picking wild blueberries and raspberries near my family's cottage in Finland as a kid. They tasted amazing.

[@TrungCyf]

I dont believe you.

[@samisuhonen9815]

@@TrungCyf Why not?

[@Carbidestruck]

@@TrungCyf As another Finn, I can attest that picking wild blueberries is really common. My freezer is filled with last summers ”harvest”.

[@kc8724]

@@TrungCyf believe it they just grow in forests 😂and we eat them and other berries too

[@TrungCyf]

@@Carbidestruck Lies.

[@grrrlriot]

As a finn my grandma would go to the forest and pickup have fresh bilberries and serve them to me with milk and its something that cant be copied ever. It's called Mustikkamaito and its still so close to my heart as a grown up.

[@Leviathan1132]

”More antioxidants than a common blueberry” those ARE common blueberries, for me at least. I have a few hundred bushes 10 steps away

[@marcusaureliusantoninus2597]

I live in the Russian North, and to me wild bluberries is something you eat tons of while out collecting forest mushrooms. We never gave a big deal about them. Intresting to know they are so expensive elsewhere.

[@FinancialShinanigan]

"4 times more antioxidant but costs 34 times more" I'll just eat 3 extra servings of blueberries and save the difference lol

[@zeroheroes4081]

It's not just the nutrients, it's also the taste. Wild blueberries are delicious, the others taste really bad in comparison

[@thunderb00m]

@@zeroheroes4081 is it 8.5 times more tasty ?

[@zeroheroes4081]

@@thunderb00m It's probably 100x times more tasty. I don't like American blueberries, but I'll eat two cups of wild blueberries every day when they're in season July-August (fresh with oats & milk for breakfast and fresh with vanilla ice-cream after dinner) and blueberry soup/jam in the winter or use freezed to make a sauce for pannacotta. It's like comparing those flavourless genetically modified tomatoes grown under lamps to heirloom tomatoes grown in the sun... If you get what I mean.

[@MathieuCote666]

@@thunderb00m yes

[@coolmamo]

Supermarket blueberries are pretty damn good

[@m1k1a1]

Big respect for Thai seasonal workers who come to pick bilberries every year. They are so used to hard work that it looks like picking berries is easy for them. Yet if I tried to keep up with their pace, I would collapse from exhaustion in less than a week.

[@Weffi76]

not sure how it has been in other countries, but here in Finland several Blueberry companies who accomodate seasonal pickers, has been fined for extreamly poor working conditions and even for not paying enough money to the workers

[@johnbrawls5974]

Same in sweden

[@sr.cosmos4543]

Fins should be picking their own bilberrys

[@Weffi76]

@@sr.cosmos4543 oh we are, but there is so much, that we cant get it, plus Finns would never go to work for the low payments you get from the blueberry companies

[@suvi7641]

@@sr.cosmos4543 i'm finnish and i always pick my own berries, no reason to spend money buying them when they're free in the forest...

[@Ass_of_Amalek]

"it has a long handle so that workers can reach the bushes without bending down" *video shows very short handles and all the workers bending over*

[@schlbus]

Came here to comment the same. Wondering what short handle means for them short of picking by hand!

[@starkparker16]

The nice thing about migrant pickers is that they can be treated poorly.

[@zjeee]

@@starkparker16 Native from Sweden here the berry picker tools we locals generally use doesn't have a handle at all it's pretty much the same as picking the berries by hand just a lot faster. So those tools looks like luxury to me I am surprised the migrant pickers get ones with handles as I always assumed they were treated a lot worse than what I see in this video.

[@jurbagarga1410]

Here in Finland the wild berries are cheap, but the american ones are expensive

[@zanezelca493]

The same in Latvia

[@juancarlosnegron2358]

Shipping costs.

[@borsch_99]

Same in Ukraine, but even locally grown blueberries are more expensive than wild bilberries

[@boarbot7829]

@@casper6014 neither, it’s just the markup of having a specially imported foreign product. It’s the company markup.

[@boarbot7829]

@@casper6014 ok, I was more thinking of the USA’s end. Anything imported/unique like organic food said to have random magical properties will be given an insane markup and sold to rich Americans.

[@jenniferk9242]

My parents had a summer cottage on a lake in Maine and there were wild blueberry bushes everywhere. My mother would make us pick buckets and buckets of blueberries to bring home to Massachusetts and she'd make jam. A few times she dug up some bushes and tried to transplant them into our yard but they never took. Years later they moved and the new house (still in MA) had wild blueberry bushes on the property-by then her child labor force had grown up and had kids of our own, so she had more kids to pick blueberries for her. 40 years since my blueberry picking days have ended and I still hate the damned things 😂

[@vannahmae7413]

haha what a great story

[@neindanke3916]

So have a banana instead.

[@feministpicnicfallsapartaf3644]

Thats not the same type of blueberries, mutt

[@BisexualTeleriGirl]

I never knew they were expensive. I've just been picking them in the woods my whole life

[@lumiukko4296]

You should also tell them about the human right issues of using Thailanders for picking blueberries. There has been several scandals about the working conditions in several firms. Also sometimes the season is so poor that they can't get enough money to oven cover the expanse of flying tickets they must cover themselves and the living expense in Finland as our prices are high and the pay is minimal wage.

[@herrakaarme]

The fact the berry pickers are still, every year, coming from Thailand, despite the various problems in Finland, tells more about the situation in Thailand than in Finland. Just like a long time ago thousands of Finns moved to North America. It's not like they would have been made factory foremen, big landowners, or high officials in the USA or Canada. Instead they worked, often to death, in the harshest of menial jobs. However, they were still better off than dying of hunger and cold in Finland. No matter what, somethings does attract the Thai berry pickers over here, otherwise they wouldn't come.

[@lumiukko4296]

@@herrakaarme Yes but they might also get wrong information and advertising in Thailand. They are really at the mercy of what people tell them there since they don't have the means to make research themselves. The same thing was also true when Finn's moved to North America. They were told great things about the opportunities but reality was different.

[@BasicEndjo]

yeah thailanders are stealing our blueberries and emassing wealth that they bring home to thailand to flaunt on the other thailanders, it is very bad that this opportunity exists

[@BasicEndjo]

@@herrakaarme i think we should bring finns in to sweden so that the finns can pick our berries, our swedish uncles are tired in their legs from picking blueberries all day,

[@herrakaarme]

@@BasicEndjo There are enough berries in Finland. There's no need for Finns to go across the border to gather them in Sweden.

[@eliasjohansson]

when i was little, i was given some “american blueberries” to try, and i remember being SOO disappointed by how bland they were in taste and texture compared to bilberries. living abroad right now means the only way i can eat them is through ikea’s blueberry jam💔💔

[@meme5266]

I do agree! That's my experience! I was so disappointed!

[@ulfvinr9364]

I ate so many of these right off the bush when I was on vacation in Finland and even Iceland. And they are so much better than the blueberries in the US! And then the strawberries in Finland - both the wild and cultivated... Those are beyond belief!

[@ilesalmo7724]

While the season for strawberries is shorter in Nordics, they get much more sunlight throughout the day than in more southern climates. This makes them sweeter

[@_wuzzlwuzzlhowler_4887]

I took a vacation to finland like a decade ago and I STILL can’t eat blueberries in the US and the strawberries are always disappointing 😢

[@GratDuForloradeArgumentet]

I know right

[@noob19087]

I have around 5 liters of these in the freezer, left from the summer harvest. And I live in an apartment complex, which just happens to have a random little forest next to it. Saying that out loud like this really makes me realize what a gift it is...

[@leticiabernadacfineart5380]

They are the most tasty berries in world, and clean. Kudos for Finland 🇫🇮!

[@thatguychris5654]

As a kid in the 90s, I picked these in the northern part of Poland. The managed forests just off the coast were great habitat and the berries grew like crazy. We got about $1.50 USD per kilo back then.

[@GraveFable25]

I remember i could get the equivalent of 4usd/kg as a kid in the late 00s which was huge for a kid.

[@giovannip8600]

And they were selling them for $30 probably hahah

[@TheRandompaint]

That's a really good price for a kid

[@brandon9172]

@@giovannip8600 As they should! Sorting through and cleaning them is very labor intensive.

[@tharindudilshan4835]

I am also a Sri Lankan who has been working in Poland for a long time.The Silesians region i have gone to collect these berries in the mountainous

[@upnorth2421]

Greetings from Finland. I've picked billberries since I was child and sort of seen them as free😳 But I agree that the picking is hard work and the berries taste wonderful.

[@vladp7405]

We have the same kind of blueberries in the Czech Republic, pretty much all over the highland and mountain forests. And it's the second most popular wild self harvest after picking mushrooms as well. Only the picking combs are restricted in some areas such as national parks, so people have to crawl around and hand pick the blueberries. The berries are then processed in different ways such as the fill for cakes, or pickled in jars, etc. Or sold fresh on markets. It is true that they are much better than the big blueberries, which are grown commercially.

[@Clarissaloui]

I had the pleasure of buying a box of mixed berries at a market in Prague a few years ago and I was amazed by the heavenly flavours I experienced from those berries. I grew up in the UK and most berries are commercially farmed in the Netherlands and Spain and imported to the UK. I will never forget the flavours of those Czech berries. It was wonderful!

[@ArkadiuszLitwin]

Same in polish forrest that kind was default blueberries for me till teenage when the these artificial mutants were starting to be more common on the storeshelves

[@thenazar3230]

Exactly. These grow in a lot of places, not just nordic countries. In Czech Republic if you say blueberry, everyone thinks the small one, not the bigger one (the big ones we call canadian blueberries).

[@MyChannel-bh6sc]

I have a couple kilograms in my freezer as well. Picked them one afternoon in July. The problem is, I always forget to eat the berries and they'll still be in the freezer early next summer :D

[@BasicEndjo]

that doesnt make you speciall i can guarantee that i have about maybe 1 or probably 2 kg more than you

[@MyChannel-bh6sc]

@@BasicEndjo :DD

[@KamiKaZantA]

Get a good quality blender and blend the FUG :DDD out of the frozen berries, and then just add milk. Is a good smoothie.

[@EC-dz4bq]

"Being free to pick berries in the wild is a luxury" Right....

[@user-ko1hi1fy9z]

They have obviously never been out for 16 hours picking nonstop with 2 foodbreaks. The best part is that the picked amount only lasts for like 2 weeks until you ate it all raw or made pie out of it.

[@vesacksi]

@@user-ko1hi1fy9z but that damn pie tho man..

[@tobberino]

@@vesacksi Blåbärspaj..🤤

[@lukassjogren7910]

It is though, not everybody has that opportunity

[@z1kon974]

I am Swedish and I've grown up picking fresh blueberries my entire life, straight from the forest. When we got home we'd always make a blueberry pie, or just eat them straight up with some milk and a tiny bit of sugar. I once tried the artificial blueberries from the supermarket and since then I've never had the store-bought ones again, they're incredibly disgusting if you compare them to the fresh blueberries i can get for free in the forest.

[@The_Savage_Wombat]

Sweden was a very nice country

[@DES.REVER.DESIGNS]

Try the store bought ones at different times of the year... just like all crops, different times of the year=different flavors and quality I've had bad blueberries from the store, and I've had exceptional ones... just gotta grab them when they are in season (for your country) so they aren't being shipped from somewhere a long ways away

[@zjeee]

I agree, same here living outside Sweden I would always get so disappointed only finding the grown store-bought ones here they don't taste anything close to the wild berries found in the forests back home.

[@logond277]

jag visste inte ens att det fanns massproducerade blåbär. i Sverige har vi väl inte namn för de olika?

[@z1kon974]

@@logond277 Njae jag tror inte vi använder de olik namnen, jag märkte dock att dom hade vit insida som på videon, dom hade ingen smak alls typ.

[@accordiongordon]

I hope the thai workers are fairly compensated. Sadly too often do we hear of hired workers who come from developing countries being exploited by their employer

[@Zondac]

I would be surprised if they weren't being paid per kilo rather than hourly wage. I'm not in the field, but taking some numbers from the past, there's practically no shot they're being paid less than 2 eur/kg (It's more likely to be more than double that honestly), which puts a nice floor on an estimate. Using the numbers from this video we can conclude an experienced berry picker would earn around 200 eur a day at a minimum. I'd be surprised if they didn't average closer to 300. As a Norwegian, I was once offered 8 eur per kilo blueberries picked, but I was nowhere near as fast, nor had the same tools these people have. We can assume that's close to the ceiling. So 200-800 eur a day, but seasonal... They're probably fine, otherwise it seems silly to fly to the other side of the globe to do work

[@YuureiInu]

@@Zondac There was a document about the Thai pickers. They have to spend loads on getting to Scandinavia and back so the profits are not that big, some even don't make any profit. It's only viable because Euro is worth more in their country. I've done it myself and I could make the same money by getting any job in my country for a month but I traveled whole Scandinavia and it was amazing.

[@The_Savage_Wombat]

The Scandinavian countries are so much more advanced than the rest of Europe because they were last to have to deal with massive immigration. It's sad that the rest of the world exploits native Europeans so much it has destroyed most of the native culture.

[@accordiongordon]

@@The_Savage_Wombat found the bigot

[@ohkfilms]

I love how this mini-documentary glazes over the very opportunistic nature of the Finnish. Though migrant pickers from Thailand are entrepreneurial on their own right. Borrowing money for passports documents lodging food and airfare are large investments made by poor Thai farmers, a huge gamble, in order to enter this unregulated industry of picking wild berries in Finland. You can't say it's illegal work in tourist visa because apparently in finland anyone is allowed to forage berries in the wild and even in private properties. So anyone can just show up pick the berries 13+ hours day and bring their haul to the factory to be paid in unregulated wages. So little info is published and always biased to make it seem like all the benefits go to the Thai pickers. It says on average they make 4000EU, they don't say that is for a whole season nor how long a season of work is. Then you must deduct all the aformentioned expenses, including flight, lodging, food, in Finland euros, how much can they really take back home to Thailand or remit to family?! Let's also talk about how they do not have accident and incidental insurance. They have no rights. The factories are really making all the money. At what point should they feel or be held accountable for causing migrant pickers in such a scale, and what should they do to care for the workforce in terms of housing and safety and fare wages. It's so stark to see Thai pickers, in a Nordic backdrop with Finnish bosses, doing backbreaking labor. then pan to factory, it's Finnish laborers doing semi-skilled labor that can be performed by the Thai, heck the Finnish can be pickers themselves right? If they don't think so, they must think themselves superior? This is scandalous. The pickers should make an amount that would be attractive for even Finnish to want to become pickers themselves!!!

[@Aggressive_architect]

I’m Ukrainian and I didn’t even know we used to supply Europe with blueberries. Last summer I was buying them for 2,5$ for a kilogram. The fact that we produce so much different food is crazy. I’ve never tried better watermelons than Ukrainian. To be honest, after I moved to the EU many years ago, I literally had depression over quality of food. I remember eating food and crying (I’m not joking).

[@Sindrijo]

@Cato G Agree. 'Blueberries' always taste like some cheap imitation of a bilberry to me.

[@Aggressive_architect]

@Cato G idk whatever they were talking about in ukraine segment

[@SeminarioMAE]

wow ukraine sounds like paradise

[@albinaker34]

As a swede it feels wierd looking at them as something expensive because I have always picked them for myself in the forest for free.

[@brindleface9316]

Yeah same here, they’re like snacks for when your parents or teachers force you to walk in the forest

[@TonyTheYouTuba]

Yeah I like to collect them whilst listening to a podcast or three, then pop them in the freezer. Had no idea about some of the things we saw in the vid!

[@reginaohak1812]

In Estonia.. during summer the bilberries are so plentiful that you just eat as much as you can and eventually move on. Same in Finland etc..Or if there are mosquitos around then only as long as you are willing to suffer for the berries. I remember hiking last summer around wild strawberries and bilberries and picking hardly any cause the bugs were just too much to handle ( I was determined to use natural bugspray. )

[@emepantti]

That's why I love raspberries even more, they grow in sunny openings which mosquitoes will avoid when the sun is shining :)

[@reginaohak1812]

@@emepantti haha yes :D wild raspberries!

[@clinomaniaeuphoria6995]

You have to wear thick enough clothing so they cant bite you, a net hat and either listen to music from headphones or wear earplugs to drown out their horrible noise. Then it's doable, but still misery.

[@fabianku8215]

If you go into the forest here in Austria you can also find such dark purple inside berries. Growing up we often went into the forest to farm a few, so i was really dissapointed to see the bought ones are so bland :D

[@notundermywatch3163]

As someone who lives in Northern Sweden seeing this is kind of funny given I pick kilos of these for free out of my backyard with my 5 year old.

[@tobberino]

Me too, we basically live in the forest up here and I remember when I was a kid and ate blueberries on my way to school, during the breaks and on my way home. They are everywhere!

[@jneill]

In my family, using any kind of picking tool was considered cheating so there was handpicking all the way.

[@Chaostheory172]

Oh this hits so hard. BIG SAME! :D

[@marfa.h3526]

I feel so bad for you lol. I am always taken against my will to the forest xd

[@jneill]

@@marfa.h3526 i find it very meditative:)

[@1873Winchester]

Every year we head into the forest and pick our fill, we freeze enough to last the year. We eat them as jam and also just thawed with sugar, or mixed with other berries. We have a chest freezer for berries we harvest.

[@UXWJ]

Honestly i have never appreciated these things enough i always used to go out into the forest at my grandparents home and pick half a bucket full of them i honestly wanna go and do it again now after i have seen this

[@I_am_Ravenclaw]

as a Ukrainian, I never appreciated bilberries because of their abundance here during summer (and freezing them for winter as well). and also they taste very sour to me. so I always craved "American style" blueberries despite their price (they are more expensive than local wild bilberries). this video made me reconsider😄

[@destinychild4659]

You should reconsider. IMO. I love billberries and I think they taste so good. I don't think they taste sour, at all. 😂

[@johanna4641]

I pick 120 liters every fall spread over 2-3 weekends and freeze them. Me and my husband eats ca 3 liter together every week mostly for breakfast 1-3 dl /person with Greek yoghurt and granola or over oatmeal. It’s so inexpensive, nutritious and plus I have picked like this since I was a child so it’s a lovely tradition. For me the berry is just essential and almost holy in a way. Nothing beats a green and blue meadow in the forest under sun.

[@ThorKarlsson]

Bilberries are a salvation for parents. Once were on a trip with some kids, and they were bored so we sent them out behind the cabin to look for berries, and they spent almost two full days foraging and eating them.

[@ctriis]

They're free if you go to the woods instead of the supermarket. You can gather a year's worth of wild berries in a few days if you know where to look.

[@Ama-Elaini]

I always gently pick them by hand - it's slower but it guarantees a better quality (the berries can be very soft) and then it's done. Using the rake means that it should be cleaned afterwards.

[@marcusaureliusantoninus2597]

also rake damages leaves and twigs, and less berries regrow on the bush after that.

[@utej.k.bemsel4777]

@@marcusaureliusantoninus2597 exactly! Thats why we don't use it.

[@TRONgirl_EXE]

As someone who lives within driving distance of the US’s top blueberry producers, I seriously have not lived until I try a Nordic bilberry

[@goodtobehandy]

That was berry educational. Blue berry pancakes are a wonderful treat at our house.

[@rsdtknqr]

yes for the beginner here: the blueberries you're used to buy in most supermarkets around the world, including the US and Europe is the Vaccinium corymbosum, or North American Blueberry. They are easier to grow commercially and the bushes are medium high and the berries have a greenish translucent inside. However the Vaccinium myrtillus as discussed in the video, is a very small bush, needs acid and wet soils, and its berries are reddish-purple when you cut them open. Most Europeans are so brainwashed by the supermarket variety, they don't even know anymore there are two types.

[@marianopesa298]

Why are they brainwashed lol it's not like it grows in most of Europe , only in the Nordics

[@scarletwitch4735]

Here in Germany they have different names. The blue ones are Blaubeeren and the greenish white ones are Heidelbeeren.

[@kentagent6343]

I'm swedish and I did not even know about the larger ones. Thought the "big blueberries" were just the large poisonous blueberry-looking berries.

[@horrorkek9340]

As a finn I always knew there existed 2 different kinds of blueberries…

[@justynafigas-skrzypulec3349]

In Poland we know very well because we also have V. myrtillus in our forests. The common commercial name for V. corymbosum is "borówka amerykańska" = "American blueberry". Folks still use it off-season as well as for dishes and desserts demanding that fruits don't soften and leak too easily but everyone knows there's nothing like wild European blueberry!

[@916Pashok]

In Belarus forest we used to pick these wild bilberries, we would eat some the rest was made for jam.

[@TheMasterOfNone]

Been eating these since I was a child. When I roam the woods in the summer I like stopping to eat a handful every now and then :) Also very cheap local frozen bilberries in the grocery store, "almost free". Regards from Finland!

[@weishenmejames]

Very well done vid what an amazing bilberries story!

[@PalEllingsen]

I have them just outside my house! I feel lucky to be able to take a short walk and pick bucketfulls if I want.

[@immohiltunen2725]

As a person who lives in finland next to a forest i can tell that wild blueberrys are really tasty

[@willek1335]

Last year, I walked for a week in the forest, eating nothing but nordic blue berries and drinking directly from streams. It's so abundant, and a stark contrast to winter where there's no food and water sources freeze over.

[@riskingmybiscuit4209]

This was a great video those berries look delicious

[@jerryfana4337]

This is the best series on the internet, no cap 👌🏽👌🏽

[@HE_Pennypacker]

I think the real story is the Thai rice farmers who fly to Finland in the off-season

[@FrilloTeslar]

Finland is the asia of scandinavia, lol

[@snoopdoggo8596]

It's wild knowing something so common over here can be so exclusive somewhere else

[@metern]

The Nordic blueberries are way more tastier than American blueberries. At my aunt's cabin. The are a lot of bushes around the cabin. So every summer we pick them, and make many types of dishes of them. 🥰

[@poppomatic]

I have followed Insider for many years and finally you have made a video in my city of Vaasa! I do know many of these people and the Gustafsson family is really kind!

[@ketteu]

My dog absolutely devours these just straight off the lil bushes. We live in Finland

[@Ass_of_Amalek]

seeing them all cleaned and sorted on the production line is quite satisfying.

[@borsch_99]

Last years in Ukraine wild bilberries are cheaper than even locally cultured blueberries. Blueberries grow in popularity but I honestly don't know why, they don't have so much antioxidants and they are watery in taste comparing to bilberries. When I was kid, we picked them in the woods near Kyiv with my mom. Couple of buckets for a half of a day and we had bilberry jam for the whole winter.

[@Ganttura1]

yes bilberry jam is no joke

[@ksionc100]

I support Ukraine in its struggle but one thing needs to be brought into light. When their harvest of bilberiies exceeds radiation limit they just mix them with unradiatted ones and that's good enough to cheat the detectors. Yes, those bilberries are then exported abroad.

[@borsch_99]

​@@ksionc100 bilberries from radiation polluted zones are never harvested for export. Nobody does it. I may believe that some babushkas could sell radiated bilberries in Kyiv but bilberry buyers who buy berries from collectors are seen only in Karpatian mountains area.

[@ksionc100]

@@borsch_99 just google it up.

[@aavakainen]

Reason for popularity: blueberries are easier and cheaper to produce. Also, possibly the visuals (people think bigger is always better...)

[@qtastically5747]

If you haven't tried pie made from fresh blueberries you haven't lived. Man they're so good. Though the color is really tough to get out of your hands or worse, clothes.

[@knogne5073]

My brother, my cousin and I would pluck these in the forest and my grandma's sister would make marmalede from them. Absolutely delicious. :)

[@Gsoda35]

my mother made blueberry jam in my childhood. so many different kind of berries in Sweden. delightful!

[@nnebundoannaobi1386]

I used to eat these growing up in Sweden, we would find them all over the forest floor. God bless Uncle Björn and Gunilla for making our childhood summers so much fun ❤️

[@marthe18luck]

I’m Norwegian and when my friends and I would go on like a outdoors day for school to the nearby forest, we would always taste the blueberries when it was summer/fall season. Even use the colorful red stuff in the blueberries to dye our skin so it looked like we had nail polish, blush, lipstick etc. and after our hands looked like we just murdered someone with all the blueberry juice from our hands. It is also known to pick blueberries to make pure blueberry jam, it is very good

[@kailo6762]

One of my teachers told us to pick blueberries during one of our lessons, and give them to him. Then, the next day he brought us blueberry pie to school :D

[@anskuu0]

Living in Finland our blueberries are the OG blueberries for me, the big bush blueberries seem kinda... not so natural? 😅

[@orangelunamoon]

Very interesting for me! I learn English with your videos

[@TheUchihaBeast]

Im from norway and i remember picking these with my great grandma when i was little. They used to grow righ outside her house.

[@andiis8]

Compared to bilberries, standard blueberries don't even taste like blueberries. Bilberries truly are the true blueberry. Yet, the prices of them are nothing compared to cloudberries (which I'd love an episode on) - people go crazy trying to get their hands on them in the wild

[@FruitingPlanet]

Vaccinium angustifolium varieties and its hybrids taste much better than the normal V. corymbosum varieties.

[@BLAQFiniks]

Because they are not blueberries LOL, same family, different species. Blueberries are truly blue colour, those - bilberries - are black in colour, that's why we literally call them "blackberries" (and what you English-speakers call blackberry has another name - "ежевика") and nobody gets confused which berry is which~

[@Zireael83]

i never even saw cloudberries anywhere in my life (live in germany) would like to taste them once in life too :)

[@bttedronning1176]

@@Zireael83 I live in Norway close to a mountain I can walk up on, full of cloudberries. They are best when you mix them into a cream! We call it måltekrem.

[@Zireael83]

@@bttedronning1176 sounds good :) if i had known that i would have looked for it, was 2 times in norway in the past. but only in oslo, so maybe a bit far from the forrests these berries are growing in :)

[@emmanuelharbor2350]

Such deep research on blueberries. Kudos business insider!

[@wanderpike]

These blueberries are abundant here in the forest of our small town in Norway. I picked them during summers.😊

[@lauragarnham77]

Now I feel happy to live in Sweden where we can just go and pick buckets of these in the forest :) got a bunch in the freezer now.

[@yland6003]

I didn’t know that “bilberries” was the name for wild blueberries. I was so confused. 😂

[@minuteman4199]

They look similar to, but not identical to wild blueberries in Canada. They are very common here and when I was a kid we used to pick them in season then freeze them for year round use.

[@yland6003]

@@Spearca thank you that’s very interesting! 👍🏼

[@spontanapa]

I am from Sweden and I eat/drink it often. I've don't buy those big blueberries at the store (tried, tasted nothing). In fact, I had no idea the big ones isn't purple inside :'D

[@jari2018]

the " american" blueberry are like Odon which is blue berry in a similar bush -this berry can be eatern but taste like in the swedish word fadd

[@Garvin285]

For most of my life I didn't even consider the idea that so many people never had a billberry or a wild strawberry, for me it was always so normal to go into the forest and have them, they're just so common also in my country nobody really uses blueberries, if you make blueberry pie you actually make billberry pie etc I live in Poland btw, I only eat blueberries sometimes in winter when billberries are unavialable... they (billberries) are also just called "berries" or "black berries" (if you want to be specific) here I highly recommend trying wild strawberries, they are nothing like market strawberries too I also recommend trying

[@BloxyMelonio]

i love these videos so much

[@brf3000]

As a Finnish-American who forages wild blueberries in the woods of New Hampshire (Northern USA), I relate to this girl so much and her love of the berries, I think she might be my long lost cousin 🙈

[@pawejabonka5095]

In Poland we call them just "berries", like the basic berries and we differentiate them from what we call "American blueberries". They might be big and sweet but without those wonderful medical properties our blueberries have - my mom would cook blueberry compote (berries, water and a bit sugar) or kisiel (just compote thickened with potato starch) every time someone in the house has upset stomach. They're valuable for us, we forage them in forests or buy from other people who do it and keep them in freezer just in case. I prefer them as they're more flavorful and just OUR, fruit of our land which we can have so much use of. But still we grow three bushes of American blueberry in my garden and enjoy them when ripe but if course treating them as a snack, not a remedy

[@trirain146]

In Czechia it is blueberries and Canadian blueberries. I prefer "our" blueberries. Canadian are big and sweet and that'a about all what one can say about htem.

[@brothaman1685]

The perfect berry. I could pick and eat these for hours, so good

[@Linda-jl5lx]

I picked several kilos this summer and made jam..my freezer will provide me with delicious jam until early winter. It takes forever to harvest and clean, but it's worth it!

[@mcchuff]

In Scotland, we call them blaeberries. I love walking around the forests of the Highlands picking them.

[@FrilloTeslar]

They're called blåbær in Danish and Norwegian, blåbär in Swedish (lit. blueberry), so that's where that word comes from. Probably came with the vikings just like kirk(e) and other scandinavian words.

[@thegman352]

I remember going to the Forests in Belarus n we used to look for these.. n my grandma used them to make jelly... good times.. n miss you babuska

[@Tsuchimursu]

watching foreigners rip them off the bushes along with big pieces of twigs is so frustrating. Bilberry bushes are very slow to grow back.... Everyone has the right to go pick them but you should respect the right to do so. These days the pickers are better organised so they rarely stumble into people's back yards anymore, at least...

[@BigboiiTone]

Wow, I love how much the forest and woods of Finland looks like Alaska

[@mega_jonne1546]

I also remember there being another berry in northern finland which was more expensive than blueberries in finnish stores too. Atkeast the products made from them

[@Omili]

Lakka (Cloudberry) maybe? Likes to grow around Nordic swamps.

[@herrakaarme]

Because of the endless hordes of mosquitos guarding the cloudberries jealously, it indeed costs you a lot of blood to go pick them.

[@Omili]

@@herrakaarme Ah the blood price by the swarm... Only bravest and most valiant warriors of Finnish bloodline dare to set their foot in the swamps of the SAATANAN ITIKKA LÄTÄKKÖ PERKELE!!

[@BasicEndjo]

@@herrakaarme berry picker

[@vanyadolly]

Cloudberries aren't even good! Who's paying for the most sour berry on earth?

[@Coffeegirl739]

We have them in forests in Poland too, at least they look identical 🤔 yummy

[@omenapora43]

Watching this while eating frozen bilberries in my yoghurt, good way to start the day!

[@frogjunk]

I pick 2 varieties of blueberries, bilberries, and huckleberries up here in Canada, the small bush blueberries are very similar to the blueberries they are picking. Such a great thing to have access to.

[@ketsuppi]

Also you forgot to mention that the thing that makes all this wild picking possible is Finland's jokamiehenoikeudet which translates to every man's rights. Those rights include one that says everyone can wander around and pick berries and mushrooms etc even though someone owns the forest. Most of Finland's forests are privately owned yet still everyone can access them and their resources such as berries for free. This allows forests which are being kept in great condition for lumber production to be great places for blueberries to grow. As shown in the video these lumber forests have easier ground to move on and just trees a great distance away from eachother and the blueberries.