Berry successful: Wilmot Orchards grows thriving blueberry farm in Toronto

Overview of blueberries from Canada, complemented by charts from Agronometrics. Original published on March 21, 2025.

Courtney Stevens, a seventh-generation farmer at Wilmot Orchards, is shaping the face of fresh produce by providing accessible agritourism through experiences like Wilmot Orchards’ pick-your-own blueberries program at the family-run farm just east of Toronto.

Additionally, through a recent land conservation agreement in conjunction with the Ontario Farmland Trust, Stevens has spearheaded the preservation of vital agricultural land that she says is essential to the future of Canada’s agricultural industry and the ability to produce local food for Ontarians.

Stevens continues the legacy of the family farm, established in 1976 on 35 acres, specializing in highbush blueberries. The farm harvests about 100,000 pounds of berries each season, attracting 20,000 to 30,000 visitors, she says.

Source: Global Trade Data (GTD)

Source: Global Trade Data (GTD)

While the farm’s peak is during the three weeks when visitors pick their own blueberries, Wilmot Orchards stays busy year-round with blueberry-based jar products, events and a dessert café. The orchard is expanding its online store and supper clubs, adapting to consumer preferences by growing larger berries, and plans to increase their jar product line and orchard size.

The Packer: As the orchards have been in your family for years, what does it mean to continue this legacy?

Stevens: The farm was started by my parents in 1976, and it’s important to our family. There’s a long legacy of farming and feeding people. I love the idea of being able to carry that forward as the seventh generation.

My parents started the farm, so after my mother, I’m the second female in real leadership. I’m very excited to essentially take over my mother’s role and carry that forward.

The three-week harvest period, with tens of thousands of you-pick visitors, sounds like a busy season.

It’s a very intense month. The rest of the year, we’re busy with canning 13 different products with blueberries in them that we sell year-round.

We also have a dessert cafe, so when guests come and pick, they can grab something to eat, a drink. About 97% of all of the food we serve there is also scratch made in the kitchen that it’s served out of.

Then, outside the season, we’re also expanding things like our online store, which is just taking off. We also have a supper club, partnering with an amazing private chef who’s based out of Toronto; we put on two fine dining suppers a year.

What kind of blueberries are you growing and what is special about the varietal?

We grow highbush. Highbush and lowbush both originated in the wild, but some people only associate lowbush blueberries with the wild; they’re also very low to the ground, with small berries that take forever to pick.

When my parents first decided to plant blueberries, they opted for highbush, which, depending on the variety, can be anywhere between about a 3-foot-tall bush up to a 7-foot-tall bush, which is much easier for people to pick.

We want picking to be something fun to do. It can be quite a quick and easy process to fill a container, and you’re not bending down for hours on end to do it.

We grow 11 different varieties of high bush blueberries. This allows us to have that three- to three-and-a-half-week season.

When the guests come to pick with us, we direct them to the specific roads that we have picking available that day. That way we’re making sure that they’re going into the right roads that are ready and they’re not in something that’s not quite ready yet or has already been picked. Then we just move them through as the season goes along.

Of each variety, the biggest change is the height of the bush, but there’s also a slight size difference, a slight flavor difference. Some are darker blue, some are lighter blue. We have guests that have been coming to us enough that they start to know which variety they prefer, so they adjust accordingly when they come in with the season. And some people just show up because they want blueberries.

Are you seeing any consumer trends, and how does Wilmot Orchards adapt to these trends or consumer preferences?

One of the big changes compared to when I was growing up, when a lot of our guests were wanting a smaller berry for baking or jam, now they’re wanting a larger berry. They want a big, sweet berry, because I find a lot more people are not baking and canning in the same way that older generations used to. They’re just wanting something fresh, and so they’re liking a really big berry.

We also change out varieties as we need. We’re now taking out some of our older bushes of some of the smaller varieties and replacing them with some bigger berries.

What about future plans? Any projects you’re excited about?

We just put in another 10 acres of orchard for blueberry bushes last year.

I am also really excited to expand our jars product line. And our supper clubs are taking off, which is very exciting.

Do you have anything you want to say about tariffs?

We don’t do a lot of exporting, and I have very few products that I bring in from the U.S. anyways. So my philosophy, even before the tariff conversation came up, was that I love working with local brands, and I love when I do find another business to work with that is local. I love continuing those relationships and building that, so that has always been my focus. In this tariff situation, it will hopefully encourage other people to do that as well.

We were already seeing a big trend during the pandemic — a lot of focus on supporting local for food security. I would encourage people to go to as many farmers’ markets, on-farm markets and buy directly from the person who raised or grew your food.

The News in Charts is a collection of stories from the industry complemented by charts from Agronometrics to help better tell their story.

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