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HANCOCK — With demand worldwide for wild blueberries never being so high, Craig and Rosemary Gladstone can’t wait to expand their business.

Craig and Rosemary Gladstone are looking ahead to this year’s wild blueberry harvest, when their company will begin using a proprietary system for drying the blueberries found in many of their “Maine Munchies” natural snack foods.—STAFF PHOTO BY TOM WALSH

Those funds, which the Bar Harbor couple matched with the help of three major investors, are now being used to design and build a proprietary new method of drying the wild blueberries contained in much of the company’s growing inventory of “Maine Munchies” natural snack foods.

To accommodate expansion, the Gladstones recently moved their business from a storefront at 41 High St. in Ellsworth to a 15,000-square-foot building at 507 Washington Junction Road in Hancock. After extensive remodeling, the building that 40 years ago served as the Irving oil company’s North American headquarters is now being equipped to dry blueberries at a fraction of the cost of traditional drying systems.

The new method was developed with the help of two $10,000 MTI seed grants awarded in 2003 and 2005. The brains behind the new technique, the couple says, include Al Bushway, a food science professor at the University of Maine-Orono, and Bob Phillips, a food scientist with the Canadian-owned Maine Wild Blueberry Co. in Machias.

“The research and development part was very successful,” Craig said. “We got what used to be a four-day process down to 90 minutes. And it’s really a very ‘green’ process, with very little waste at all. In fact the byproducts, which include blueberry concentrate and pieces of blueberry, could wind up being even more valuable than the dried blueberries.”

“There are a lot of pieces to put together, but I know we can do it,” Craig said. “We’ll be able to run a lot of product through here, which could be a 24-hour-a-day operation.”

“Last year there were 25 million pounds shipped out of state for drying, most of it to the West Coast,” Craig said. “That was at a cost of 12 cents per pound. With only a one-third yield, that meant it cost 36 cents per pound, and that’s not counting the fuel price increases that we’ve seen since then.”

Rosemary said Gladstone’s was the first agricultural company to receive an MTI development award.

“MTI has gone through a lot of changes,” she said. “They have really been trying to figure out how to be fair to the various business sectors. At first they were extremely focused on computer technology and biotechnology.”

Gladstone’s will be required to repay the $248,710 award, but won’t have to pay interest on the money.

“It’s interest-free until we’re commercialized, and then we have three years to pay it back,” Craig said. “If it’s not paid back by then, the amount owed is doubled.”

Aside from its owners, the company now has three part-time employees, with plans to add at least three more this summer.

“When we’re processing, we’ll need three full-time people,” Craig said. “Our plans call for eventually having 14 employees.”