Blueberries are big business, and behind every bite-sized superfruit is years of R&D. The global blueberry market is expected to grow to $13.2 billion by 2035, as more people look for healthy, antioxidant-rich foods. Research and development are key to this growth, helping create better varieties, boost production, and deal with issues like climate change and pests. 

Costa Group is accelerating its blueberry breeding program with help from WayBeyond’s FarmRoad platform.

With Costa Berries International Segment already using FarmRoad across production farms in Morocco, India, and Laos, the Costa Group is now deploying the FarmRoad platform at its Australian berry breeding farms to improve the selection, testing, and scaling of new varieties.

The Challenge and Opportunity

Costa Group’s Variety Improvement Program (VIP) spans more than 25 years of research. However, as climate volatility and global demand increase, the company needs more than intuition and legacy methods to evaluate which blueberries can thrive under evolving conditions.

That’s where FarmRoad comes in.

The Role of FarmRoad in Breeding

“While FarmRoad supports daily decisions on Costa Berries International’s production farms, its role in the breeding program is focused on variety evaluation,” says George Jessett, General Manager of International Horticulture at Costa Group.

Through the VIP deployment, Costa Group can:

• Collect climate data tied to varietal performance
• Compare results across trial sites
• Identify the strongest candidates for commercialization

The integration of FarmRoad gives Costa Group’s R&D teams real-time insights across geographically diverse breeding sites, turning complexity into clarity.

A Global View with Local Impact

The broader Costa network already spans 14 farms and more than 400 hectares of protected cropping. Now, that same scalable infrastructure is being applied to optimize berry breeding decisions.

“This is a milestone for our team and a signal to the wider industry,” said Lotte Bayly, Global Accounts Director at WayBeyond. “Helping a global leader like Costa Group use data not just for production but for innovation is exactly what FarmRoad was built to do.”

The Takeaway

This isn’t just about better berries. It takes the Costa Group 8 to 10 years to develop and launch a new variety, from selecting parent plants to running trials across diverse climates. By the time a new blueberry reaches the market, the conditions in which it grows may have shifted dramatically.

That’s why FarmRoad matters. With real-time data and environmental insights, Costa Group isn’t just breeding for yield or flavor, they’re breeding for future resilience. FarmRoad enables smarter R&D, stronger variety pipelines, and more informed decisions across climates and crop lifecycles.

Learn more about FarmRoad and how it supports global breeding programs, growers and seed producers here.