Christine Berger – well-known specialists for sea buckthorn

Sea buckthorn is a local plant and a so-called “superfood”, since it contains high levels of Vitamin C. One company that has dedicated itself for more than twety years to the cultivation and processing of sea buckthorn is Christine Berger GmbH & Co. KG in the town of Werder in Germany’s Brandenburg region.

The company has an area of 150 ha where it cultivates the certified organic sea buckthorn varieties of Hergo, Leikora, Askola and ­Habego. Each of these varieties is used for different purposes.
The sea buckthorn berries are carefully harvested and processed in such a way that their highly effective active agents are guaranteed to be retained. This involves cutting the branches with the berries instead of the conventional method of simply picking the berries themselves. Then, they are flash frozen for further processing. The company processes the fruit mass into its own specialities as well as powder, fine fruit pulp, ­frozen fruits and prefabricated fruit preparations for further processing. Customers for these products are primarily dairy product and baked goods companies.
Dried sea buckthorn berries are particularly well suited as muesli and baking ingredients. At present, the company is also working on the creation of a biscuit with a Brandenburg bakery. Dorothee Berger and her mother Christine Berger orig-inally founded the company, and Dorothee is responsible for processing and sales. Currently, she is fully reliant on her technological expertise, because the production solutions are by no means “easy”. The company is constantly out to create sea buckthorn products with an extra kick. Dorothee Berger calls this “sea buckthorn with a yummy effect”.     •