Berry grower.
Born at Morris on 30 January 1951 to Anne Schroeder (1923-2011) and William Lorne “Lornie” Ritz (1914-1989), he married Kimberly Paterson in 1976. They settled at Netley and went on to have two children. He worked for Centra Gas for 25 years, but his passion lay in his cultivation of the saskatoon berry (Amelanchier canadensis), also known as serviceberry, juneberry, shadbush, petite poire, sugarplum, and, in parts of the US, chuckleberry.
In 1991, he and his wife bought a two-hectare patch of saskatoons half an hour north of Winnipeg, at Petersfield. For several years they operated the orchard as a U-pick farm, also sharing their knowledge about the growing of saskatoons with other fledgling growers. In 1999, he decided to explore larger untapped markets for the berry, and established an export business, Prairie Lane Saskatoons Inc. At that point he helped design a flash freezer that preserved the berries within an hour of harvest.
He then travelled throughout Europe to sell the continent on saskatoon ice cream, baked goods, jam, syrup, and honey. Just as European consumers began warming to saskatoons, which resemble blueberries in taste and appearance but are more closely related to the apple, Britain promptly banned all imports in spring of 2004. The European Union subsequently pronounced them a “novel” item, whose perceived short history as a foodstuff meant it was bound for a lengthy cycle of safety testing, including nutritional, toxicological, and microbiological testing. It was a big blow to Prairie Lane and the 80 growers who had planned on supplying the market.
Undaunted, Ritz drafted a research paper outlining the chemical similarities between saskatoons and blueberries and argued that the saskatoon had been a staple of European diets for centuries. He described how saskatoons had been a chief ingredient in pemmican, used historically by indigenous North Americans, coureurs de bois, and other European traders for centuries as a source of nutrition, with no ill effects. Championed by then future British prime minister, Boris Johnson, the saskatoon berry won out when the ban was overturned in November 2004, and eventually Britain even began to grow saskatoons commercially, calling them juneberries (Amelanchier lamarckii), which already existed in the wild in certain isolated parts of the United Kingdom. In the following decades, the saskatoon berry industry in Canada grew to as many as 900 farms with production totalling thousands of acres, and berries can be found in grocery store freezers, contributing millions to the Canadian economy.
Ritz died on 27 July 2007 and was buried in the Sewell Cemetery.
Obituary [William Lorne Ritz], Winnipeg Free Press, 21 January 1989, page 42.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 30 July 2007.
Obituary [Annie Ritz], Winnipeg Free Press, 21 November 2011.
“John Lorne Ritz,” Find A Grave.
“Sweet saskatoon berries too new for British” by Graeme Smith, The Globe and Mail, 7 June 2004.
“Berry farmer battled British government” by Patrick White, The Globe and Mail, 1 August 2007.
The Saskatoon Berry Council of Canada.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 15 October 2024
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