Berried treasure — Raspberries fresh from the farm

SALEM, Utah County — They say that blood is thicker than water, but raspberry juice is a more apt comparison for the Cornaby family. Four generations are working together to preserve the family farm, with raspberries as its major crop. Besides selling fresh raspberries, the family is developing value-added products such as spreads, vinegar, syrup, and a quick-fix "Jam in a Jiffy" kit to capture that berry flavor all year.

It was a crisp September morning, and the mechanical picking machine was already making its way through the long rows of raspberry bushes, rustling them just enough so that the ripe fruit would slip off its stem and eventually land on a conveyor belt that leads up to an inspection table for sorting. As they watched the action while standing near the bushes, Janet Cornaby Stocks and her daughter, Jana Brown, couldn't resist picking and nibbling on a few of the ruby-red berries.

"You can't stand next to a raspberry bush and not eat some," Stocks said. "I never get tired of them."

And Brown said her children like to come to the farm so they can eat their fill of berries as well.

The 20-acre farm will yield about 20,000 pounds of raspberries from July through October. The Cornaby farm has been in the family for more than 100 years, producing peaches, grapes, alfalfa, grain and a variety of vegetables. Only recently did it become all-raspberries, all the time.

Five years ago, Reed and Lucy Cornaby, now both 83, were at a turning point. Many neighboring farms had been sold to developers. But they didn't want to see their fertile land become another subdivision.

That was when their children, David Cornaby and Janet Stocks, got involved. David, who has a master's degree in electrical engineering, had just retired from a career in the technology fast lane. He did some research and suggested that instead of selling the farm, it should be planted in raspberries.

"We figured we should do a specialty crop that has a high value for the acreage, such as nuts or fruit, or lavender as they're doing at Young Living Farms," David Cornaby said. "The idea was to put it into something that we can at least break even. I wanted to make Dad and Mom proud of the farm. What I didn't understand was all the work that went with it. "

When he first heard the idea, "It scared the life out of me, because raspberries are a lot of work," Reed Cornaby admitted. "But the city was happy to see it, because they want more green space."