How it all started

The Cornish Seaberry story began on a trek to Mount Everest base camp. I’m Seth, an agronomist, and I became friends with Kiran, a computer scientist. Other group members included marathon runners, ex paratroopers, triathletes and fell runners. Needless to say, we both quietly wondered if we’d taken on a bit too much!

At an altitude of around 5300m base camp has approximately half as much oxygen in the air compared to our sea-level homes of Cornwall and Amsterdam.

As we gained altitude, the thin mountain air started to cause problems and we both displayed the symptoms of altitude sickness — dizziness, nosebleeds, splitting headaches and breathlessness.

One night our sherpa gave us each a glassful of a hot, bright-orange liquid elixir, our first introduction to seaberry juice and it’s unique, delicious taste. Our sherpa told us about the fruit’s distinct nutritional properties and its positive effects on wellbeing. 

We asked if it would help with altitude sickness, and with a big smile he answered, “Of course”. We gulped back the juice, thought nothing of it and went to sleep. The next morning we both agreed that the juice had made us feel much better. Seaberry juice had gained two new devotees. 

We completed the trek to base camp and even climbed a small mountain to watch the breathtaking beauty of sunrise on Everest’s summit cone.

In Kathmandu we celebrated our successful trek and chatted about sea buckthorn over a few beers. The Sherpas were happy to tell us all about their Nepali ‘superfruit’. A plan was formed.

Back in Cornwall and walking my dog on the cliff path, I stumbled across some sea buckthorn plants growing wild. I stopped to investigate and then I noticed the seaberries - the fruits of sea buckthorn - right there on the trees. This was an encouraging sign. 

We started out with 100 trees in a Cornish orchard and watched with interest to see if they grew. They did, so we planted a few more.

I learnt a lot more about sea buckthorn during my Nuffield Farming Scholarship study, which enabled me to visit growers across Europe, China and in the Indian Himalayas.

Buoyed with knowledge and full of enthusiasm, I returned home and established a farm tenancy on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. We planted our largest orchard yet; over 2,000 sea buckthorn trees.

The trees are now entering fruit production. It’s a steep learning curve, but we are determined to realise our dream and bring this relatively unknown and yet wonderful, healthy fruit to the British public.