January 14, 2014 - Heckman’s Island, NS
ACOA Minister Rob Moore and Parliamentary Secretary Gerald Keddy today visited Terra Beata Farms on Heckman’s Island, Lunenburg County to hear how innovative entrepreneurs can put strategic economic development investments to good use.
When David Ernst and his wife Evelyn first contemplated buying some boggy land across the road from their Nova Scotia home, they had no idea how quickly a global business could take root there.
Today, their company Terra Beata Farms ? taken from the Latin for “blessed earth” ? has nearly 50 full and part-time employees, and gross annual sales of nearly $4 million, with over one hundred full container loads of cranberries shipped all around the world during the past year alone.
Plans for 2014 are even more ambitious—a doubling of Atlantic Canadian sales and achieving a listing for their dried fruit products at a major retailer in Ontario.
Terra Beata not only sells its own cranberries, but also buys, processes and markets cranberries and other Atlantic Canadian fruits from other producers.
Terra Beata runs a cleaning and packing operation in Richibucto, NB as well as a main facility on Heckman’s Island in Lunenburg where they make juice, preserves, dried fruit and pack frozen berries. Both sites operate year-round.
Kelsie Corey
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of State
Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
613-941-7241
Alex Smith
Director, Communications and Outreach
Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
902-426-9417/902-830-3839 (cell)
Email: alex.smith@acoa-apeca.gc.ca
David Ernst
Terra Beata Farms
902-634-4435 (ext. 201)
902-529-0412 (cell)
Email: david@cranberryfarm.ca
