The latest in a wave of franken-fruit that’s a growing trend on grocery store shelves is the “pineberry” and we have to say, it sounds kind of delicious. This new summer berry looks like something out of a Strawberry Shortcake cartoon. It’s shaped like a strawberry, and in fact it has the genetic make up of a strawberry, but it’s white with red seeds and it tastes and smells like a pineapple. The new fruit will be available in the United Kingdom starting this spring. The British supermarket chain Waitrose will be selling the intriguing new berries in 45 stores across the UK for the rest of the fruit’s 5 week growing season.
According to Nicki Baggott, Waitrose fruit buyer, “Pineberries offer out customers the chance to add a new fruit into their diet and the berry’s bright appearance can add an unusual decoration to sweet dishes.”
“Designer fruit” have been around for a while, think grapples and pluots. They’ve become more and more popular over the last decade – a $100 million dollar business in the United States alone. Though genetic engineering of produce is also becoming more and more prevalent, these new fruits are actually the product of traditional crossbreeding, not genetic manipulation.
These weird, but potentially tasty, fruits originated in South America as a wild variety of strawberry. Seven years ago Dutch farmers began growing them commercially in greenhouses. Will we be seeing them soon in US supermarkets? That probably depends on whether the fruit strike a cord with UK consumers. Waitrose’s last attempt at introducing a new fruit to the market, the “strasberry” which was meant to combine strawberries and raspberries, didn’t make the international cut.
