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Norris Blueberry Farms is a blueberry farm located in Oregon’s Umpqua Valley. Family operated, the business was founded by Paul Norris. On their 500 plus acres of land, Norris Blueberry Farms produces some of the most pristine blueberries on the market by maintaining sound safety and quality production procedures. Due to the business’s high quality blueberry crops, the business internationally trades with countries located across the globe. In fact, Norris Blueberry Farms exports to each continent besides Africa. Beyond his international influence, Paul Norris also impacts the local community by hiring local employees, especially local youth.

History
Paul Norris was an emergency room doctor when he and his wife Sandy started Norris Blueberry Farm in 1976. The farm began as a hobby, but has since grown into an international business producing 550 acres worth of blueberries each season. The Norris’ daughters, Carrie and Ellie, and their husbands help manage the operation today, and occasionally, a small third generation Norris can be spotted riding through the packing barn in a wagon pulled by Grandma Norris.

International Trade
Paul Norris has grown his farm slowly and steadily throughout the past 42 years. The farm ships to dozens of countries in Asia, Europe and South America. In addition, Norris Farms is GLOBALG.A.P. certified (a voluntary certification which sets standards for good agricultural practices).

Community Impact
Paul Norris is very good about giving back to his community. Each summer, the Norris’ go out of their way to hire high school and college students looking for summer jobs. Some of these young people are given management positions. Last year, every packing barn manager was a current college student and was responsible for leading and managing a team of around twenty individuals. Many of these young students work for Norris for six or more years before entering the job force full time. Retroactive pay is another unique benefit that Norris Farms provides its employees. If an employee is hard working, at the end of two weeks they will be evaluated for a pay raise. If they receive that pay raise, it is then applied to all previous hours worked. In this way, the Norris’s are helping local kids fund their education paths.

Every spring, the Sutherlin Rotary Club hosts an auction to raise money for scholarships. These scholarships are given to students at Oakland and Sutherlin High School each year. The spring Rotary Auction is held in the Norris Farms packing barn and hosts around four hundred community members. This year, the auction raised $125,000 for scholarships.

Last spring, he purchased a Maf Industries berry sorting machine which takes 56 pictures of each blueberry. Worldwide there is only a handful of such machines.

The Maf
In the spring of 2017 Paul Norris purchased and innovative berry sorting machine from Maf Industries. The machine takes 56 pictures of each individual blueberry and is one of only a handful that exist worldwide.