The $396 pineapples are unfolded like origami and packed in gorgeous red boxes with ventilation holes, the $156 melons are wrapped in Styrofoam netting, and all the other fruit has been pruned to a single plant on a vine, planted to make it sweeter.
The luxury fruit, which has a long history in parts of Asia, is becoming more popular in the United States as new varieties are grown and imported, including ones that companies have developed over the years in an attempt to market produce with unique looks and flavors. A highly limited edition $396 pineapple, branded “Ruby Glow” for its red skin, sold out in the U.S. within weeks.
Some of these fruits have long been given as gifts, especially in Japan and Korea. The trend is catching on in the U.S., as is a taste for the perfect berries and melons travelers may have tried abroad, produce experts say. And interest in premium fruits is growing as the luxury industry grows, says Soyoung Shim, a scholar who studies consumer and financial behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The market has become much more globalized,” she said. “You can buy anything you want,” she added.
Eve Turow-Paul, an author and expert on global food trends, described luxury fruit as one of the “luxury food experiences” where people express their values. “The world has become more homogenized, especially in the last decade,” she said. “How do you continue to stand out in this food environment?”
In recent decades, unique produce has been imported into the U.S., including a $156 melon known as a crown melon, specialty Korean grapes prized for their large size and crisp texture, white strawberries from Japan and mangosteen, a tropical fruit with soft white flesh, said Robert Schuler, a spokesman for Melissa's Produce, which describes itself as the nation's largest distributor of specialty fruits and vegetables.
But the company's attempts to introduce fruits unfamiliar to American palates haven't always been successful, he added: Star apple, a deep purple fruit native to the Caribbean and Central America, oka, a yam popular in New Zealand, and square watermelon, which “cuts like toast” but doesn't taste as good, were all unsuccessful, Schueller said. (Melissa is currently working with growers in Costa Rica to develop a box-shaped, sweet watermelon.)
But the luxury fruit remains out of reach for the majority of Americans: The average household spends about $1,080 per month on groceries, according to a recent analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And even for those who can afford it, is a single pineapple worth the cost of a dishwasher?
“There's no reason to spend $400 on a piece of fruit,” said David Karp, a fruit researcher at the University of California, Riverside.
Karp, known for pursuing unusual produce, hasn't yet tried RubyGlow, but said there's nothing in the pineapple patent to indicate it's significantly better than common varieties. But in some cases, he added, it's worth paying a more modest premium for the tastiest, in-season produce. “For $10 or $20 a pound, you can get some amazing fruit,” Karp said.
Below are some of the most luxurious fruits available in the United States.
designer pineapple
Pineapple, a tropical fruit native to South America, has historically been a luxury item symbolizing imperialism, power, and luxury in the United States and Europe. It was not until the early 20th century that plantations in Hawaii made the fruit more widely available across North America.
A handful of unique and expensive pineapples have been introduced to the U.S. in recent years, including the Elefante Green Gold pineapple. Native to Ghana, it is shipped in crates with white flesh, an edible core, low acidity and a tendency to fall over. It sells for about $26. The Pink Glow pineapple, from Costa Rica, was genetically engineered by Fresh Del Monte to have candy-pink flesh and low acidity. Introduced in 2019 for about $50, it now sells for up to $29, depending on size.
This year, global produce distributor Del Monte introduced its RubyGlow pineapple, with red skin and sweet yellow flesh, to China and the U.S. after 16 years of development. The high price comes from only a few thousand of the fruit being grown this year, but the company says prices could fall as production increases. Neither PinkGlow nor RubyGlow, sold by Melissa's Produce, come with crowns that can be used to grow pineapples.
Unique Melon
The fragrant and sweet Crown Melon is a muskmelon that is a specialty of Shizuoka Prefecture, which is warm and receives a lot of sunshine. It is pruned so that only one fruit can be harvested from each tree, which concentrates the melon's flavor.
In Japan, the melons, which have webbed skin and lime-green flesh and are analyzed for sugar content before being sold, are traditionally given as gifts. They are packed in boxes with their T-shaped stems as a reminder of the growing process. The melons were only recently approved for import into the United States and can fetch up to $156 each.
Many U.S. buyers are already familiar with the melon, but it's gaining wider popularity, said Ayako Yuki, spokeswoman for Ikigai Fruits, which imports the fruit and other premium Japanese produce to the U.S. Social media influencers are also helping introduce the premium produce to global markets, she added. “They really want to get that first bite,” Yuki said.
Sweetly boiled strawberries
A pound of non-organically grown strawberries typically costs just a few dollars, and a single premium strawberry can cost that much or more, up to about $29 each.
Ikigai, a premium fruit importer, sells boxes of a variety of red, pink and white strawberries it imports from Japan for $89 to $780. A typical box costs about $128 and contains 30 large berries, the company says. Grown in greenhouses and picked when they're perfectly ripe and sweet, the berries are sometimes individually wrapped to protect them from being bumped or bruised.
In 2018, U.S.-based company Oishii began selling Japanese-style strawberries grown in an indoor vertical farm in New Jersey. The TikTok-famous strawberries initially sold for about $100 per pound (about $5 per strawberry), but now cost about a fifth of that, said Hiroki Koga, president of Oishii. “Our mission is not to sell luxury fruit,” he added, saying the strawberries were merely a proof of concept that vertical farms can grow the tastiest produce.
Other U.S. strawberries are premium products, but not as eye-wateringly expensive as the imported ones: Organic Harry's Berries, grown in Oxnard, California, currently go for about $15 to $20 a pound, and the best varieties are very sweet, produce experts say.
Other types of Mango
Mangoes, a tropical fruit native to Asia, were introduced to Florida in the 1800s. But to this day, growing, harvesting and importing practices mean that the most common mangoes in the U.S. are often too hard, fibrous or too sour.
But in recent decades, the USDA has approved imports from other countries, including India and Colombia. High-quality mangoes are also grown in Florida and California, but they're not always available in other states. “Some people still think a mango is a mango,” says Schueller of Melissa's Produce. “They don't all taste the same.”
Pink Elephant mangoes, grown in Vietnam and sold by Melissa, are the newest of the imported varieties, Schueler said. Each fruit can weigh up to 2 pounds and fetch up to $25 each. Miyazaki mangoes, also known as “eggs of the sun,” imported from Japan by another retailer, sell for $95 each.
“On the surface, this seems really unsustainable,” food trends expert Turow-Paul said of importing premium fruit into the U.S., noting that transportation distances are part of the reason some fruits are so expensive.
But she said she hopes U.S.-grown fruit will inspire the same kind of excitement. “There are all kinds of weird and delicious and beautiful things growing that we don't celebrate,” Turow-Paul said.
She added that “people are becoming more open to trying new and unusual things.”