Features Production Research
Contribution honours cranberry entrepreneur

Two funds totalling $2 million
have been established at the University of British Columbia in memory
of one of Canada’s leading cranberry entrepreneurs.

Two funds totalling $2 million have been established at the University of British Columbia in memory of one of Canada’s leading cranberry entrepreneurs. The family of Rashpal “Paul” Dhillon made the contribution, which will support research examining Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), an incurable lung disease, and the health benefits of cranberries. The funds are called the Rashpal Dhillon Fund in Idiopathic Pulmonary Research and the Rashpal Dhillon Fund in Cranberry Research. Dhillon, who died Jan. 6, 2003, from IPF, invested in cranberry bogs in Richmond and Pitt Meadows in the late 1970s and his Richberry Group grew to become Canada’s largest producer of cranberries. “The funding from the Dhillon family will allow our faculty to bring together a team of plant and food nutrition researchers to conduct interdisciplinary research on cranberries,” says Dr. Murray Isman, Dean of UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems. “They will investigate how cranberries can be grown in a sustainable fashion with enhanced levels of compounds considered of high value to human health.”