| Profession | Businesswoman and Farmer |
| Born | New Lisbon, NJ |
| Innovation | Cultivated the blueberry into a $40 million industry |
| NJ Connection | A New Jersey native who lived on the family farm in Whitesbog Village |
The apple had Thomas Jefferson. The peanut had George Washington Carver.
Fortunately for New Jersey, the blueberry had Elizabeth Coleman White.
Before her time, blueberries in New Jersey were seen as little more than a wild fruit with little promise as a cash crop.
By the time Elizabeth White was done, blueberries would become a $40 million business, they would be shipped by the millions of pounds from New Jersey farms to places all over the world, Elizabeth White would become known as “The Blueberry Queen,” and the highbush blueberry would become the official state fruit.
Elizabeth White turned the blueberry into gold by gathering many years’ worth of information from local growers about the patterns of wild blueberry plant growth, and from that, devised new varieties of blueberries that could be cultivated and made commercially viable.
Within a few years, the White farm yielded around 20,000 barrels of blueberries each year.
Today, blueberry farms in South Jersey account for 21% of the world’s blueberry production.
Elizabeth White’s innovations didn’t stop with cultivation.
She showed a deft business talent by helping to organize the New Jersey Blueberry Cooperative Association to promote the blueberry and she was the first to use cellophane to wrap and ship the product.
