In 2020, the Oregon Consular Corps named Dragonberry Produce the recipient of its annual Global Trade/Mid-Size Business Award. The recognition cited Amy Nguyen’s leadership “for global engagement in bringing high value to both the domestic and international markets.”
Global Trade Award Mid-Size Business 2020
The standard behind the shelves
The Oregon Consular Corps is an organization of career and honorary consular officials representing approximately 40 nations across the Pacific Northwest. Its annual business awards recognize Oregon companies whose work has expanded the state’s international trade footprint. The 2020 award placed Dragonberry alongside the most internationally engaged mid-sized businesses in the state.
Sixteen years of laying the foundation
By the time the award was given, Dragonberry had already been building for sixteen years. Amy Nguyen, a graduate of Eastern Oregon University with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, founded Dragonberry in 2004 on a stated foundation of respect, responsibility, partnership, and community. The company became one of the largest importers of Vietnamese dragon fruit into the United States.
In 2013, Amy led the construction of Oregon’s first LEED-certified produce distribution building in Canby. In 2015, she worked to pass a new chemical tolerance law for dragon fruit with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, opening the regulatory door for the variety to scale on American shelves.
The four-word foundation Dragonberry was built on in 2004.
Dragonberry’s accelerated trajectory
The 2020 recognition was, in retrospect, an early read on a trajectory that has since accelerated. The infrastructure Amy was being honored for would, in the years after, do all of this:
