Driscoll’s new CEO is on a quest for berries that can resist climate change

Less than a year into his role as CEO of the world’s largest berry company, Driscoll’s CEO Soren Bjorn is laser-focused on continuing its mission to produce the best berries possible. Increasingly, accomplishing that requires focusing research and development efforts on creating berries that can withstand the impact of climate change. 

Bjorn took the helm of the $3 billion company in January, but the Denmark native has been with Watsonville-based Driscoll’s since 2006. He previously held the positions of president of the company’s American division, senior vice president of international business and global technologies, and head of the company’s North American business unit. Bjorn got into the fruit business shortly after graduating college in Texas, working with a company that specialized in tropical fruit. 

As head of a global company that works with farmers around the world, Bjorn is keenly aware of the serious impact climate change is having on operations, from sparking wildfires to rising temperatures and new diseases and pests moving into new regions. Those realities are now shaping the company’s research and development efforts, which have been core to Driscoll’s since its first proprietary strawberry variety was planted in the early 1900s. Today these efforts aren’t focused on just creating better-tasting berries (although that’s always at the forefront). It’s also about creating hardier berries that can withstand temperature swings, are more water-efficient or even more resistant to certain diseases. 

“How do our genetics stand up to this? How do we make them more resilient?” asked Bjorn. “How do we make them more efficient amid changing conditions and create more resilient berries?”

Those are just some of the questions Driscoll’s research and development teams are hard at work on, especially at the Cassin Ranch facility in Watsonville. The company is also leaning into new artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to help with things like forecasting models for different regions and seasons. It recently acquired technology from Alphabet’s now-defunct agricultural startup, Mineral. That’s in addition to the work being done by geneticists who are identifying markers for resistance to certain diseases, among other efforts. Bjorn said the company has already established 90% resistance in its berries to certain diseases. 

Combining this genetic research with the types of predictive AI models the company is starting to use is a game-changer, said Bjorn: “I think that kind of technology is what is going to help the most with dealing with the impacts of climate change.”

While AI is helping, it’s biology and genetics at the core as teams cross different berry breeds and varietals to create new hybrids, then wait for them to grow.  

“We develop the cultivars — that’s a lot of what’s happening here, and then we grow the plants, which are then handed over to growers,” Bjorn said on a recent summer morning as he walked through the rows of blackberry plants at Cassin Ranch in Watsonville. 

Cassin Ranch is the heart of the company’s operations, where biologists and genetic scientists work to create the perfect berry for different conditions. One recent success, for example, has been perfecting a thornless blackberry bush that yields large, dark purple berries the size of an adult thumb, bursting with juice yet sturdy enough to handle being packaged and shipped to stores. Removing thorns from the plants has reduced the amount of protective covering that must be worn by those picking the berries, explained Bjorn, and it speeds up the amount of time it takes to pick them.

Driscoll’s doesn’t grow the berries it sells; rather, the company works with an estimated 900-1,000 growers in more than 20 countries, many of them small and independent operations. Those growers manage their own workforce. Growers that work with Driscoll’s gain exclusive rights to grow Driscoll’s berries — the specific strains/varieties of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries the company has developed. Those berries are then packaged and sold under the Driscoll’s name in more than 70 countries. Driscoll’s sells raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries across three product lines: organic, conventional and what’s known as the Sweetest Batch, a line of extra-sweet berries. 

Within Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, Driscoll’s employs as many as 1,000 or more workers depending on the season, including its R&D teams, sales and the employees who work in the fields where the company develops its proprietary berries. The company also operates breeding and research facilities in other parts of the country and around the world; for instance, blueberries growing in hotter areas like Peru have different requirements than those grown in California or the United Kingdom. 

While Driscoll’s doesn’t own the farms it works with, Bjorn said that the company works hard to ensure its growers meet high quality standards, food safety standards and legal requirements around, say, labor issues. He acknowledges that’s more difficult in some developing countries, where the company has to work more closely to provide enforcement. Some critics have argued that Driscoll’s isn’t doing enough to ensure the farms it works with are practicing fair labor standards or reducing pesticide usage. In fact, local advocates have called the company out for not cracking down harder on pesticide usage near schools in the Pajaro Valley. 

“We’re always interested in input and feedback from fellow members of our community,” said Bjorn. “The usage of pesticides, including the distance from schools, is closely regulated by the California Department of Pesticide Regulations; it’s up to the scientists and regulators to determine if those regulations should be modified.” 

Bjorn believes technology and innovation will also be key to reducing pesticide usage, and said that’s part of the company’s “More berries, less resources” initiative.

“We’re collaborating with universities like UC Santa Cruz and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to develop non-chemical solutions to fight pests and disease,” he said. “Internally, we’re making tremendous progress in the discovery of berry genetics, developing varieties that are more pest and disease-resistant and therefore will require fewer pesticide inputs.”

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