The Currant Company Story
The Currant Company, LLC was the first company in America to domestically produce a nationally available Black Currant product of any kind. In 2005, it introduced the wonderfully delicious, incredibly healthy CurrantC™ all natural, premium black currant nectar. CurrantC nectar is available in the refrigerated section of supermarkets across America and Canada. In 2009, the company developed 5 new delicious flavors of black currant based nectars. All CurrantC Black Currant nectars contain a higher percentage of Black Currants than other ‘ready to drink’ beverages.
Walnut Grove Farm, the home of The Currant Company (link to The Currant Company’s Farm)is located in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley. During the short summer harvest, the Currant Company also sells its fresh black currants and throughout the rest of the year farm fresh frozen currants are available. Currants have been virtually unknown in the U.S. because commercial cultivation was nationally banned in 1911 by an act of Congress initiated by the lumber industry. A botanical disease called white pine blister rust was thought to harm white pines if currants were grown in their proximity. Greg Quinn, founder of The Currant Company, was recently successful in overturning the 100 year-old ban on growing currants in New York.
So what about those dried currants we’ve used in baking for so long? Turns out, they are raisins (dried grapes) not currants (Black Currants) at all. Now, the real Black Currant, packed with antioxidants, vitamin C, potassium, iron, calcium, manganese, magnesium and other vital nutrients, is making a comeback!
Why did Greg Quinn create CurrantC™ Black Currant Nectars?
When Greg Quinn and Carolyn Blackwood bought Walnut Grove Farm in 1999, Greg wanted to find a crop that would be profitable enough to support the farm. Of course the words "farm" and "profit" are not often found in the same sentence. After some searching for that suitable crop, he stumbled upon the idea of currants. Quinn knew about currants from his restaurant days in Bavaria. Black Currants are very healthy. They are packed with antioxidants, vitamin C, potassium, as well as iron, calcium, manganese, magnesium and best of all, the flavor is unique and absolutely delicious. A botanical disease called white pine blister rust was thought to harm white pines if currants were grown in their proximity. Currants have remained off the radar of the American consciousness for almost 100 years. An interesting side note is that what Americans think are real "currants", those raisiny things one puts in their scones, are actually not currants at all but are raisins or dried grapes. Armed with a horticultural background (20 years teaching at The New York Botanical Garden) Quinn did some research into the disease. He deduced that the science behind the ban was incomplete and outdated. There are now resistant and immune varieties. Quinn worked with Cornell University Cooperative Extension to obtain a grant to fund a feasibility study into the possibility of a currant industry in the U.S. The conclusion was glowingly positive, not only for an industry of food products, but also to help family farms, many of which are hanging on by their financial fingernails.
With these findings under his arm, Quinn began dialogs with many in the New York State Legislature (the law had been relegated to States jurisdiction in the 60’s during some federal legislative house cleaning). He was able to convince several States’ Senators to sponsor a bill to overturn the ban. With the help of Senator Larkin’s office, new legislation was drafted during which time Quinn lobbied the Assembly and the Senate. The first vote in the Senate on the new bill to legalize the commercial cultivation of currants was passed unanimously and the following week, the Assembly also voted unanimously to adopt the new law. Five months later, Gov. Pataki signed the new bill into law, thus overturning the 100 year-old ban. The story captured the imagination of farmer and consumer alike. His efforts have been written about on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, The front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Associated Press and about 400 newspapers in several languages around the country as well as websites such as CBS Market Watch, CNN.com (with almost 17 million hits in one day).
The next steps in the process were to develop both the source of supply and the market. With Walnut Grove Farm, Quinn has created the first commercial currant farm in the state and has established the only dedicated currant nursery in the country to propagate plants for other farmers to begin growing. He is breeding new cultivars to expand the U.S. gene pool. He has also established a management company to grow currants on the properties of non-farming landowners. Part of his strategy to help save some farms and open spaces is to convince people to purchase defunct farms and hire him to grow currants on the land thereby saving the farms from developers.
Of course the success of the whole project is dependent on the market so Quinn created The Currant Company, LLC which develops, and markets and sells consumer products. On May 1, 2005, it introduced CurrantC™ all natural, black currant nectar. The health benefits of currants combined with the incredibly delicious flavor of the CurrantC™ Nectar have driven the sales. Extensive research abroad has found the consumption of currants and currant products can help in a wide range of problems from the treatment of skin disorders such as dermatitis and psoriases, the treatment of eye problems such as glaucoma, the lowering of blood pressure and much more. In 2007, the Scottish Crop Research Institute, after studying the 20 most popular fruits, crowned Black Currants the number 1 superfruit with its cache of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. In 2006, a study from Tuft’s University reported that Black Currants may help "Thwart Alzheimer’s".
What’s in a Name?
Currants, Black Currants, Blackcurrants, Zante currants, there's much confusion about what to call our favorite little berry here in the U.S. and around the world. Are Currants and Black currants the same? Are Black Currants and Blackcurrants the same? Do Blackcurrants or Black Currants have anything to do with Zante currants? There's also a lot of different stories about how this all came about, so as the official Currant website for all things "Currant" we'd like to set the record straight.
One story, with many variations, which is simply copied from article to article without any research, claims that those little raisins were originally called currants by the Greeks for many years because they came from Corinth and the names sounded alike.
The Greeks never actually called their raisins "currants." Blackcurrants or currants are not Greek words. The Greek work for raisin is Σταφίδες or stafides in the Latin alphabet.
The real story is that when the Greeks began to export the small dried grapes (raisins), from the Ionian Islands of Ζάκυνθος or Zakýnthos and Κόρινθος or Kórinthos (Corinth), the Greek writing on the sides of the boxes of the first shipment was mistranslated to "Zante Currants."
Since the growing of the real currants had been banned for many years in the U.S. at that point and few Americans knew what real Currants were any more, the name stuck and we now have 80+ years of cook books telling us to put a half a cup of Zante currants, or more commonly the abbreviated "currants," in our scones and soda bread when what they really mean is the special seedless, mini-raisin made from black Corinthian grapes.
Originally, English speaking countries such as England, Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand grew black and red currants. There are also sub-cultivars which are white, pink and even green. The black currant variety became the most popular variety because of its uniquely intense tart flavor and incredible health benefits. It wasn't long that the black currant became so popular it was thought of a distinct from its colorful cousins and the name "Blackcurrant" emerged as a single type of berry. In the U.S. we still use the separated name "Black Currant" as well as Red Currant or White Currant and often, just Currant which cause some confusion with the misnamed raisins.
Zante currants have become part of the English vernacular and have come to be accepted to identify the Greek raisins. Calling raisins just "currants," however, is improper and misleading. The most egregious mistake made by some food producers and writers alike is to call a raisin of any type, a black currant.
Raisins (dried grapes) and Black Currants are entirely different fruits from very different botanical families. Grapes belong to the genus Vitus and Currants belong to the genus Ribes. Raisins have some phytonutrients, most notably boron but raisins contain fewer phenols (antioxidants) than grapes since many of grape's phenols are largely lost in the conversion of grapes to raisins through the grape drying process.
True Black Currants are amazingly healthy.
