Lynden’s Frozen Raspberries Dominate The Nation’s Supply

Raspberries, specifically frozen raspberries. They show up in the frozen food section of your grocery aisles in a variety of products like the frozen triple Berry blend. In other places around the store, you'll find them in Tillamook's Washington Raspberry yogurt, at Costco in Raspberry lemon yogurt muffins, and Smucker's Raspberry Jam.  

These are not the raspberries you find in the produce section. They will just be labeled “U.S. grown raspberries” and most of them come from just one town in Washington state. 

According to SeattleTimes.com,
‘Farms in Lynden — a town of roughly 16,000 people about 5 miles south of the Canadian border — grow 90% of the frozen red raspberries that are grown and harvested in the United States each year. Since 2015, these berries have generated more than $1 billion in sales, according to the Washington Red Raspberry Commission.’ 

During the summer harvest season, there are over 54 farms surrounding Lynden that provide a harvest of up to 50 million pounds of red raspberries, most of them flash frozen. 

The town of Lynden and the farms surrounding it find themselves in a so-called "Goldilocks zone" for Raspberry cultivation. Most years the climate is perfect, but sometimes Mother Nature makes it difficult. Sometimes it can be too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, and anyone who farms raspberries will tell you that they can be a little picky. (The raspberries, that is.) 

The worst year in recent history for raspberries in Lynden was in 2021. Referred to as the heat Dome of 2021, that weather event was responsible for killing over 126 people and raining destruction on Raspberry fields in Lynden. The total Raspberry harvest that year was less than half what they normally have. 

Since then, raspberries have been recovering both in the fields and in the marketplace, although it is said that those nasty blueberries are encroaching on raspberries' market share.  

Blueberries just need to step back and stay in their own lane. 

90% of frozen raspberries grown in the U.S. come from this WA town | The Seattle Times 
Heat Wave 2021 | Washington State Department of Health