CALIFORNIA - Climate change will continue to drive industry conversations for years to come. Driscoll’s Chief Executive Officer Soren Bjorn understands the critical issues facing fresh produce and has been on a mission to find berries that can do the seemingly impossible: resist climate change.

In a recent article from Lookout Santa Cruz, one of the company’s research and development (R&D) facilities was the focus. This Watsonville, California, facility, titled Cassin Ranch, is hard at work to find a way to genetically create more resilient berries, all while using new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to forecast models for different regions and seasons.

A recent success out of Cassin Ranch was perfecting a blackberry bush that yields large, dark purple berries the size of an adult thumb, bursting with juice yet sturdy enough to handle being packaged and shipped to stores.

As Bjorn was explaining the research done at Cassin Ranch, he touched upon the fact that Driscoll’s has already established 90 percent resistance in its berries to certain diseases. Along with new technology and predictive AI models, the company relies on biology and genetics to ensure that its berries are high quality.

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