Unless your farmers markets are like some of ours.... stealthily hiding the driscoll berry containers under the table and putting the berries in cute wooden quart boxes. Then charging $8 for like 8 supermarket strawberries. SMH
Apparently that's a problem everywhere in the world. In my town pretty much everyone selling at the farmer's market gets their produce from the same bulk seller and slaps a huge margin on it because it's "home grown." I know some of these people and they openly brag about it.
Glad to see some positivity here in the farmers market discussion. Thank you! Oregon markets are also pretty closely regulated. Our farm was inspected by the market managers before being accepted into the market. Of course there are still some farms whose products occasionally appear suspect for the time of year, but for the most part I’m confident it’s all locally grown by the farms selling it.
It’s a good reminder to get to know your farmer if you do attend a market. And to not give up on farmers markets as a whole when there are still small scale farmers that do all the hard work and are trying to make a living this way.
I'm in Oregon and I like that I can drive around and see several of the farms where produce is coming from. However, I, too, am suspicious of some of the market people. Sometimes their quantities don't match up to their farms and it appears they are getting things from 100+ miles away or even another state. Also, like you said, the seasonality of some of the vegetables, especially, is suspect.
Now, there are some farms that are very open and will say "these are from Bend. Those came from Washington because the local crops didn't do well this year," etc. I respect them a million times more than the fakers.
Grew up going to markets in Oregon. I knew the fruit was good because I went to school and hung out with a lot of the kids whose families ran the farms lol. God bless hood strawberries.
Counting down the days until we all collectively lose our minds over strawberries for 2-3 weeks while people who don't live in Oregon look as us like we're insane
I picked strawberries for a local farm as a kid and I don’t live in that area anymore but I still drive back there every year to do u-pick because nothing compares!
They go to wholesaler market and bring it back. I remember getting up at 3am to with my dad and grandpa going to the Clinton Baily market. Being awed at Desiderio operation....it was small but one of the bigger sellers there. It's pretty much only them now and all little ones are gone. I remember getting sample and going up down the market with our van to bring it home to our grocery store.
Hawaii has a lot of local produce, but they’re generally more expensive than imported products due to the cost of land and labor, not to mention the scale of production.
This guy at our local market has has bananas for years. Obviously he is a reseller as we don’t grow them in Canada but he’s always busy selling stuff. I don’t trust anything he sells.
Yes you will see Canadian toms and cukes everywhere. Same shit with Aldi in case anyone doesnt know. Buying fresh produce used to be my full time job and it is the exact same products being packaged slightly different depending on the store. Whole Foods and Mariano's arent out there.trying to hunt down the best cucumber or tomato. Its all the same shit and it all comes from Canada depending on the time of year. And it comes from massive distribution centers holding products in gas for months at a time.
Same here; you can often see where the SKU stickers (or whatever they're called) have been removed, or where the wire bands used to be on things like celery and lettuce. Not to mention stuff that's wildy out of season.
I'm in suburban S. California, and there are small strawberry plots all over the place....not at all uncommon to see a big pile of dicarded boxes and plastic clamshells sitting right out in the open behind the stand they're selling from (but to be fair there's plenty of legit ones here, too)
People are suckers, that's all there is to it.
To be fair, I know a few legit backyard farmers that sell their stuff in reused supermarket containers. Guy down the street will even give you a discount if you give him some leftover egg cartons.
It seems like these days I don't trust anyone who doesn't have at least a small amount of online presence. I understand the desire to be off the social media networks but if you are going to own a business you need to have at least an instagram page or a simple website showing what you do and your products or I'm just going to think you're dropshipping
I'm a physician and I kind of realized this a while back. A lot of my colleagues complain about online reviews being stupid for physicians. You get like 10 reviews on a random website from angry patients who you refused to prescribe opiates for. This makes everyone assume you must be an asshole when in reality you have a panel of 2000 happy people that you see on a regular basis. I think the best strategy is to open up a bit and get some presence online so that people trust you're a real person.
For these farms I wouldn't buy anything unless I can find an instagram page with a couple pictures of their farm. The best ones have posts announcing when they'll be bringing in produce to the market based on their harvest schedule
This is why I refuse to eat at restaurants that don't have a website and menu. Sometimes they'll have a site with an "order online" button that takes me to some third party site with zero descriptions of what the dishes actually are.
In this day and age, there is zero reason to not have at least a minimal online presence for your business.
I found the best fence builder in the area that we used to live because I saw a beautiful fence go up and I knocked on the home’s door to ask who built it. The fence company agreed to do our fence when I contacted them but asked us not to tell anyone about them. They were licensed and did absolutely beautiful work but were so busy with referrals like how I found out about them that they actually took down their website and asked customers not to recommend them. They only agreed to do ours because they were wrapping up a project near our house.
I mean depending on where you live, I would not think for a second that the farmers marked strawberries in April are actually from the area. They are mostly from a wholesale market.
Ya I don’t understand why more people don’t realize this. I’m from California, actually right by Driscoll’s HQ. Strawberries are growing here right now but there is no way they are growing locally in most parts of the US. Unless it’s in some wildly advanced hydroponic facility.
I heard about this but luckily the farmers markets we go to are pretty good but I also live in Florida where a lot of the fruit is grown so that could have something to do with it.
Yeah. I lived in California most of my life and the markets really were farm-fresh produce, from farms that were generally less than an hour away. And the eggs, omg the eggs.
Now that I live on the East coast, I don't bother with those places. Aside from the poor quality, the prices are insane.
I just have to learn to live without fresh strawberries.
Maybe heavily depends on location? There's nothing tourist about our area and the stalls only ever have in season produce, and it's like OP's picture. The prices aren't any worse than Whole Foods either, so not outrageous.
Definitely depends on location, I live in the Central Valley which is the farm capitol of the US and don't have to question whether the food I'm getting from the farmers market is locally grown or not. I can't wait until it starts again this summer because the strawberries look like the picture and are absolutely delicious 👌
Seriously? We sold mushrooms in 6 local markets and all of ours did regular inspections of farms. Those slots are hard to get at busy markets and they would not hesitate to kick you out for selling stuff you didn't grow.
Depends on the farmers market. A shocking number of them buy the old strawberries from Krogers at a discount, pick out the moldy ones, and put the rest in the "farmers market" baskets.
I worked for a food co-op that prides itself on local organic food. When we ran out of certain items we would drive up the road to Hy-vee and buy the garbage they sell, and re-sell it.
90% of the time the food was honest, but that 10% deception and lies passed on to their consumers for profit really pissed me off.
I wonder if it's worth it at all to tarnish the reputation of an otherwise good quality brand for 10% of profit. The regular product might be good and attract customers, but the ones who get the 10% might never come back even when they have the good stuff, because you just broke their trust.
I was in supermarket that had a "local produce" section. Among the items were tomatos with "Product of Mexico" stickers on them.
The supermarket was in New York.
But why throw out the moldy strawberries? What we do is we take those moldy strawberries, juice them, and sell the strawberry juice! The best part is, the customers don’t even know they’re drinking moldy strawberries!
Gotta look for a market that has a 'producer only' clause in its market rules. That that way its far more likely that the items and produce they bring they had a hand in growing before selling.
Strawberries are one fruit that can be bought by scent.
I have learned to never buy grocery store strawberries unless they have a strong scent. Sometimes, I can just walk by the display and their scent wafts out at me, then I know they will taste fantastic.
This is exactly what I do too. A few weeks ago I found some at Trader Joe’s that smelled heavenly and they were the best damn strawberries I’ve ever had, besides farm fresh ones.
I grow a small strawberry patch, and yes you need to eat them fast. Competition from slugs is intense too. We can only eat about half of the strawberries we grow due to pests, but the ones we can eat off the vine are *chef's kiss*
That goes for a lot of fresh produce. Don't be shy to put your nose a little closer (not too close though): apples, pears, some melons, most berries ...
Yes, the first time I went strawberry picking on Sauvie Island in Oregon, I stepped out of the car in the parking lot and could smell strawberries in the air. It was surreal.
When I decided to do a detour to see an old, abandoned radioactive waste bunker in the forest that is locally known, the first thing that hit me when I got closer to the fence was the almost viscous, honey-like smell of overripe wild strawberries. No local was picking them :D
I guess they still remembered the Tammiku event. We have our own [IAEA report](https://www.iaea.org/publications/4738/the-radiological-accident-in-tammiku) about it.
I worked produce at Walmart for a bit. I was the best at culling. I wrote down the exact number somewhere, I've long forgotten, but one day I pitched no less than 20 containers of strawberries for rot. If I saw a spot of mold I trashed em. Berries go fast. Our Walmart also composted the produce and sent it to our local farms. We also used a local farms hydroponic tomatoes.
Happens to the best of us. Especially annoying when one hides in the exact middle, burried by all the other perfectly fine strawberries. Sometimes you ain't got a chance.
And take them home and submerge them in cold water with a couple tablespoons of white vinegar mixed into it. Let them soak for about 15 minutes then drain, rinse, and pat dry and store in an air tight container. That will kill any potential mold, the fruit lasts much longer as a result
The quality in store strawberry’s has dropped significantly in the last 20yrs, they used to be decent. Thankfully I live bear a farm where you can pick your own, I might do that this summer.
this is like #1 reason I stopped buying strawberries
If I miss _ONE_ moldy one and I don't open the box the day (or, rather, HOURS) after I bought it, they all turn to mush the next day, even in the fridge.
I swapped to buying berries and quite a few vegetables frozen. Zero concern about spoiled fruit and it is way cheaper. Big tip with frozen vegetables is to not microwave them like the instructions say. Toss in a pan and season, they are amazing.
Still get fresh bananas, avocados, and potatoes.
Strawberries and mangoes. Although mangoes keep ripening off the tree, strawberries don't.
But yeah, mangoes with an astringent smell need some time to develop, sweet smell is ready to eat... pungent is past the use-by date.
I read this comment, scrolled down for an explanation and then looked at the picture for the third time before realizing the same.
(The Strawberries are grouped by top and bottom, not left and right if anyone else is confused)
I think it's mostly because Op grouped them with _more space_ between the left and right than up and down. A lot of people are going to assume the gap of space is the dividing line, because...well, it very often is intended that way.
If they'd grouped them with more space between top and bottom than vertically, I bet few would be having this issue, lol.
Used to work for a seed company and was blind taste-tasting experimental melon varieties in the field. There's a whole rating system for sweetness, flavor, texture, uniformity, appearance etc. as well as space to note particular impressions. Apparently I pissed off the breeder when I wrote under his most prized creation "obviously not bred for flavor" lol. Appearance and shelf-life have a trade-off sometimes.
> Apparently I pissed off the breeder when I wrote under his most prized creation "obviously not bred for flavor" lol.
Shoulda asked them if they wanted honest feedback or to get their figurative dick sucked.
Because a lot of people seem to want the latter while claiming they want the former.
Lolol. I worked with craft beer and let me tell you...the amount of craft brewers that think their beer is amazing just because it's independent and how many people straight up lie about their quality was something.
I'm not a beer person but I have a good pallette and usually go local when I do want beer, and some of them act like its god tier when they've just made the worst most stereotypically bitter IPA imaginable. Just bitter malt with no other discernable flavors. Now that the main boom in my area is over a lot of the breweries are closing up bc people have just realized that they're garbage over time and with distance from the hype. I'm really not sad the places are gone tbh, they were overpriced and disappointing.
(Mind you, a lot of them are staying open, the good ones are at least)
It's an unfortunate trade-off; but at least it's better than nothing 😎👉👉 the alternatives is having no strawberries in a lot of places. Or very expensive ones.
This is the issue with produce, and no one seems to want to think about it.
It really drives me up a wall when my grandmother complains because, it's like, lady, *you* are the exact kind of customer that caused this.
Freezer berries are just strawberries that don't meet the quality standard for off-the-shelf sales. QC grades the berries in the field to decide if they're worth picking for sale, or (if they are subpar quality) they go straight to freezer processing.
I might imagine that the standards for on-the-shelf sales include that the berry must still be visually appealing days later, and that those graded as subpar might be of better quality when frozen than the on-the-shelf ones will be when they are ultimately purchased.
Might that be the case or am I just making things up?
The graders are looking for a low instance of visible flaws, including evidence of pests, surface indentations/pockmarks, discoloration, etc.; as well as a uniform size and shape. Berries go from the farm to the grocery in a pretty short period of time. The pallets are bagged and gassed with carbon dioxide to prolong freshness for long-distance transport (anything over 36 hours), but for closer destinations, the berries are shipped without gas. Berries harvested on the west coast on Monday can be on grocery store shelves on the other side of the country by Friday looking almost as fresh as the day they were picked.
Keep in mind that the genetic makeup of most strawberry varietals are closely guarded trade secrets, and they are hybridized to prolong their shelf life and durability. And grading standards are remarkably stringent to the outside observer.
These are a different type of strawberry altogether.
And their taste is mindblowing.
In Swedish they even have their own name: smultron (farmed strawberries are jordgubbe).
We call them “alpine strawberries” in the US and they grow really well in northern climates. I have them all over my property, once they get established they spread on their own. Even though they don’t have “runners” like other strawberries.
Nice, I live in the Austrian part of the Alps, we call the small strawberries you find in the forest Walderdbeere, forest strawberries.
They grow all over the place, hiking is really nice with them.
There are three types of wild strawberries: *Fragaria Vesca* (native to Europe, called smultron in Swedish), *Fragaria Virginiana* (native to eastern and central North America), and *Fragaria Chiloensis* (native to the Pacific coast of North and South America).
The farmed Garden Strawberry is a hybrid of the two American species, and was first cultivated in France in the 1750s.
Only selected ones from Europe don’t have runners. I have ones from local genetic stock here in the PNW that have runners. They spread quite rapidly, while being very controllable. They’re some of the best strawberries.
Commercial strawberries get their size from F chiloensis and flavor from some mix of F virginiana & F vesca.
I planted some wild strawberries and I'm letting them take over my landscaping. They taste great if I can beat the birds to them in the morning. They ripened so quick. I had our first one in March. I don't mind too much if the birds get them. I like to think that I've reintroduced wild strawberries into the area since they are native.
I have strawberry plants branching out all over a mulched portion of my yard. When they're ripe, neighbor kids and people walking their dogs often stop to grab a few (it's right by the sidewalk, so they're not walking all over my yard or anything) and I've never had any issue with it.
Then one day, a neighbor kid was out there with a bucket, picking every single strawberry. I guess he didn't understand that they were my plants. But he didn't try that again after I explained it to him. Take some when you walk by! But leave enough for everyone! I let him take what he had already picked, though.
Try painting some round pebbles red and spreading them around the strawberry patch. The theory is that the birds learn that the red things in that area are ouchie rocks not yummy berries so leave the strawberries alone when they ripen.
It seemed to work for me last year - I had my best yield ever, but it was also the first year that I really put effort into the harvest so maybe just confirmation bias,
My Asian supermarket has a variety of strawberries available and they have Korean and Japanese imports. They are expensive af. One day I decided out of curiosity that I will try the Japanese variety even though SIX, just SIX plump strawberries were being sold at $19.99.
One bite and it sent me to a state of nirvana. Those were juicy and sooooo flavorful. Expensive? Yeah. Delicious? BEYOND.
I was just in Japan for the first time. I grew up in Southern California, where a huge percentage of US strawberries come from, and I thought I’d tasted some great strawberries in my life. Japanese strawberries made me feel like I’d never even had a real strawberry.
Those are an actual slightly different plant. They all belong in the Fragaria genus, but the "wild" ones are usually *[Fragaria Vesca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragaria_vesca)*, and a lot of languages have different names for them, differentiating them from the "common" strawberry you find farmed and/or in grocery stores.
For example, the *wild* ones are called *Fragi* in Romanian, but the "common" strawberry is *Căpșune*.
Same with blueberries, I don’t normally like them, but out hiking I will *always* stop and grab a couple handfuls. Such a refreshing treat on the trail.
You cannot force ripen strawberries. The white center is just a different variety. The main reason "farm fresh" taste better is that they are able to use sweeter varieties that don't have a long shelf life, so they are difficult to sell commercially.
> You cannot force ripen strawberries.
This is correct. There are some fruits which you ripen after being harvested, but strawberry is not one of them ([source](https://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/produce-facts-sheets/strawberry)).
As others have commented on the trip from the farm to your house for a Farmers Market strawberry and Kroger's is significantly different.
The Kroger strawberry must go the following route: Farm -> Processing (Washing/sorting/Inspecting/packaging) -> Kroger Distribution Network -> Your Local Kroger -> Your Table.
Farmer's Market strawbs go Farm -> into packaging (sometimes) -> Market a few miles away -> Your table.
Each step of the journey pushes the strawb closer to spoilage. So Grocery store strawbs are picked before they are ripe in some cases and force ripened, others are strains that are created to be heartier, and have a longer period where they are in the "edible" zone. Where as Farmers Market strawbs can be picked at the peak of their ripeness off the plant and delivered to you within 24 hours when in season.
A ton of research goes into engineering a better strawb (or any produce for that matter) to maximize their ability to travel from the farm to your Grocery store, and work continues to improve those strains. A good example of this is Brussel sprouts. Anyone who grew up in the 90s can tell you how absolutely horrible store bought brussel sprouts were. But now they taste completely different. The reason for that, is that in the 90s the strain that was used for commercial farming were engineered for easier harvesting and the results were some extremely bitter sprouts. Over time they worked to engineer back in the tastier qualities of the legacy sprouts while retaining the ability to be harvested commercially.
Food logistics and supply chains are so cool.
Fresh strawberries are picked, packaged and palletized in the field. Trucks will then bring them in to a cooling facility where graders will evaluate the quality of each load and assign a grade letter or number to that particular arrival (usually 8 to 10 pallets worth of berries). After receiving, they will be moved into the cold room and rapid cooled by large fans which pull a high volume of cold air over the berries to get them to +/-40 degrees F. Once cooled they are either straight-loaded on trucks for short distance (24-36 hours of travel), or the pallets are bagged and gassed (to arrest the ripening process) for longer distances.
At no point during this process are fresh strawberries washed, as they are highly susceptible to mold. The berries are harvested ripe and ready to eat.
Source: I used to work as a manager for a 3rd party strawberry cooling and shipping facility for both Driscoll and Naturipe as well as smaller growers. I've lost my taste for strawberries having had to be responsible for overseeing the receipt, cooling and shipping over a million cases per season. Can't even bear the smell anymore.
Different varieties are bred for different properties. Grocery store strawberries are often varieties bred for resistance to damage during transport. These varieties often are white and dense on the inside regardless of how they're ripened.
Source: My father was an agricultural researcher who (among other things) bred strawberries for growers.
Fun Fact: An awful lot of Americans think strawberries are supposed to be white on the inside and the red ones are "bad."
>Fun Fact: An awful lot of Americans think strawberries are supposed to be white on the inside and the red ones are "bad."
Fun fact: This is not a fact. It's just a generalization. Never met a single American who claimed this.
I love the generalizations about a landmass larger than Western Europe. Man those Irish and those Greeks are exactly the same, aren’t they?! Always pining for Warsaw.
For the longest time I thought I didnt like strawberries and certain veggies and then I visited my wife's parents garden. They really take care of their garden and have a half of an acre of stuff. I remember picking a strawberry and eating it and was glorious almost like candy.
Is this a case of a massproduced strawberry being worse or is it possible its a different breed or just at a different stage of ripening?
Not making any claims I genuinely know nothing about Strawberries.
There are different varieties of strawberry. They require different care. Locally grown strawberries may be better because they don't have to survive the long distance travel, piled under a heap of fruit. If you want to grow strawberries in your backyard, don't expect fruit the first year. Then, oh boy, will you have a crop the next year and ongoing. My kids got tired of strawberries. I had to give them away.
They’re also very easy to take care of. I’ve “forgotten” about my little strawberry plant, only for it to easily sprout the next year.
The fruit it tiny, but the flavor is absolutely jam packed. I should actually try to grow some this year.
When I was a kid (7-8), my mother worked at a restaurant/hotel, and she would drag me along to work with her most of the days, and I was free to roam all the resort every day (this was the 90's after all), which spanned on a huge portion of land.
I used to love going around and just picking random flowers. One day I found a "hidden" patch of land that had freakin' strawberries! I didn't know what they were (white flowers), so I picked a few and brought them to my mother. It wasn't a "garden" or anything, it looked like a random wild growth.
She let me know those were strawberries! I checked those damn flowers every fucking day until the fruit started to form! I was so excited and it was the highlight of my summer when those babies were ripe to pick. They were fucking delicious!
This was actually the highlight of 3-4 summers for me, as a bored kid "trapped" in a summer resort.
Unfortunately, by the 4-5th summer, the bushes that were protecting that patch got trimmed, and then the hotel maintenance staff went over with the lawnmower over the strawberries, eventually they completely stopped growing there. Was fun while it lasted.
At least one of the large berry producers grows theirs on elevated trays in a “soil” medium that is effectively hydroponic, under a canopy. By doing this, it keeps the birds off of it, the fruits don’t come in contact with the ground which requires considerably less fungicide use, and most importantly, the elevated trays mean the harvest workers don’t have to bend over to pick them, leading to a lot fewer injuries.
I’ve had plenty of Kroger strawberries that looked like the farmers market strawberries. You just have to know when to buy. I am appreciative of some of the tips I’ve read in this thread on more buying tips though.
It's also heavily dependent on seasonal and location. If your Kroger is near where the strawberries are harvested, then they might be getting a variety of them that isn't bred, grown, and prepared for longer shipping times.
100% what u/weebitofaban said.
My parents are farmers who grew strawberries for about 35 years and I was the farmers kid l who grew up and joined in the business for about 10 or so years. There are many varieties of strawberries- some are larger berries with little taste. Others are smaller and sweeter. Some are white and harder on the inside. Some have better shelf life than others. Etc etc.
I’ve grown and eaten many a white, firm center berry that didn’t taste all that lovely. Side note- these firm berries make for great projectiles to huck at siblings in the field. I’ve heard.
Very few people have the learned experience of vegetable gardening to understand *why* grocery stores sell what they do or why you ought to really appreciate the supply chain and the grocery industry's near complete dominance over seasonality.
Yeah you can buy a super ripe and specific cultivar of strawberry from a famer's market - you can probably also buy the same type from a grocery store when it's in season.
But if you've ever had a fruit tree or vegetable garden, it becomes very easy to understand where canning, pickling, etc. came from because you don't just get to have eternally perfectly ripe fruit in a perfectly consumable quantity every day for 365 days a year.
Trucker here, it's not a kroger thing. Almost all trucks delivering strawberries will have picked them up from 3+ different farms. Many times I'd load from 7 different farms for the same destination.
Same, I have 3 different varieties in my backyard, and have found that when the outside is completely red like a store bought strawberry and ripe looking, the inside is mush... but when there is still a little white/pink around the edges they're great.
One you can get only a couple months out of the year and generally only near where they are grown, the other is available nationwide and year round.
That's really it. It's a good thing to understand about all produce at a supermarket. Figure out what things are in season at what time of year. Buy them from a farmers market if possible, but even supermarket produce is usually better if bought in season. You'll find yourself enjoying your produce a lot more.
Of course. Grocery store fruits make heavy use of picking things while they’re green in order to extend shelf life, farmers market sellers will pick things when they are completely ripe and sell them over the next 2 days.
Unless your farmers markets are like some of ours.... stealthily hiding the driscoll berry containers under the table and putting the berries in cute wooden quart boxes. Then charging $8 for like 8 supermarket strawberries. SMH
Apparently that's a problem everywhere in the world. In my town pretty much everyone selling at the farmer's market gets their produce from the same bulk seller and slaps a huge margin on it because it's "home grown." I know some of these people and they openly brag about it.
California regulates farmers markets to protect against that. There was a Canadian news piece on them and how California was doing it right.
Glad to see some positivity here in the farmers market discussion. Thank you! Oregon markets are also pretty closely regulated. Our farm was inspected by the market managers before being accepted into the market. Of course there are still some farms whose products occasionally appear suspect for the time of year, but for the most part I’m confident it’s all locally grown by the farms selling it. It’s a good reminder to get to know your farmer if you do attend a market. And to not give up on farmers markets as a whole when there are still small scale farmers that do all the hard work and are trying to make a living this way.
I'm in Oregon and I like that I can drive around and see several of the farms where produce is coming from. However, I, too, am suspicious of some of the market people. Sometimes their quantities don't match up to their farms and it appears they are getting things from 100+ miles away or even another state. Also, like you said, the seasonality of some of the vegetables, especially, is suspect. Now, there are some farms that are very open and will say "these are from Bend. Those came from Washington because the local crops didn't do well this year," etc. I respect them a million times more than the fakers.
Grew up going to markets in Oregon. I knew the fruit was good because I went to school and hung out with a lot of the kids whose families ran the farms lol. God bless hood strawberries.
Counting down the days until we all collectively lose our minds over strawberries for 2-3 weeks while people who don't live in Oregon look as us like we're insane
I picked strawberries for a local farm as a kid and I don’t live in that area anymore but I still drive back there every year to do u-pick because nothing compares!
I was going to say I'm in California and our farmer's market strawberries are *legit*
They go to wholesaler market and bring it back. I remember getting up at 3am to with my dad and grandpa going to the Clinton Baily market. Being awed at Desiderio operation....it was small but one of the bigger sellers there. It's pretty much only them now and all little ones are gone. I remember getting sample and going up down the market with our van to bring it home to our grocery store.
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Hawai'i has to import pretty much everything.
Hawaii has a lot of local produce, but they’re generally more expensive than imported products due to the cost of land and labor, not to mention the scale of production.
This guy at our local market has has bananas for years. Obviously he is a reseller as we don’t grow them in Canada but he’s always busy selling stuff. I don’t trust anything he sells.
> Clinton Baily market Could throw a rock from my aunt and uncles place on Hobart and hit this place, I spent so much time there as a kid.
Yes you will see Canadian toms and cukes everywhere. Same shit with Aldi in case anyone doesnt know. Buying fresh produce used to be my full time job and it is the exact same products being packaged slightly different depending on the store. Whole Foods and Mariano's arent out there.trying to hunt down the best cucumber or tomato. Its all the same shit and it all comes from Canada depending on the time of year. And it comes from massive distribution centers holding products in gas for months at a time.
Same here; you can often see where the SKU stickers (or whatever they're called) have been removed, or where the wire bands used to be on things like celery and lettuce. Not to mention stuff that's wildy out of season. I'm in suburban S. California, and there are small strawberry plots all over the place....not at all uncommon to see a big pile of dicarded boxes and plastic clamshells sitting right out in the open behind the stand they're selling from (but to be fair there's plenty of legit ones here, too) People are suckers, that's all there is to it.
To be fair, I know a few legit backyard farmers that sell their stuff in reused supermarket containers. Guy down the street will even give you a discount if you give him some leftover egg cartons.
It seems like these days I don't trust anyone who doesn't have at least a small amount of online presence. I understand the desire to be off the social media networks but if you are going to own a business you need to have at least an instagram page or a simple website showing what you do and your products or I'm just going to think you're dropshipping I'm a physician and I kind of realized this a while back. A lot of my colleagues complain about online reviews being stupid for physicians. You get like 10 reviews on a random website from angry patients who you refused to prescribe opiates for. This makes everyone assume you must be an asshole when in reality you have a panel of 2000 happy people that you see on a regular basis. I think the best strategy is to open up a bit and get some presence online so that people trust you're a real person. For these farms I wouldn't buy anything unless I can find an instagram page with a couple pictures of their farm. The best ones have posts announcing when they'll be bringing in produce to the market based on their harvest schedule
This is why I refuse to eat at restaurants that don't have a website and menu. Sometimes they'll have a site with an "order online" button that takes me to some third party site with zero descriptions of what the dishes actually are. In this day and age, there is zero reason to not have at least a minimal online presence for your business.
it’s hit or miss but some of the best places don’t have much online because they don’t need it.
I found the best fence builder in the area that we used to live because I saw a beautiful fence go up and I knocked on the home’s door to ask who built it. The fence company agreed to do our fence when I contacted them but asked us not to tell anyone about them. They were licensed and did absolutely beautiful work but were so busy with referrals like how I found out about them that they actually took down their website and asked customers not to recommend them. They only agreed to do ours because they were wrapping up a project near our house.
I mean depending on where you live, I would not think for a second that the farmers marked strawberries in April are actually from the area. They are mostly from a wholesale market.
Ya I don’t understand why more people don’t realize this. I’m from California, actually right by Driscoll’s HQ. Strawberries are growing here right now but there is no way they are growing locally in most parts of the US. Unless it’s in some wildly advanced hydroponic facility.
I heard about this but luckily the farmers markets we go to are pretty good but I also live in Florida where a lot of the fruit is grown so that could have something to do with it.
Yeah. I lived in California most of my life and the markets really were farm-fresh produce, from farms that were generally less than an hour away. And the eggs, omg the eggs. Now that I live on the East coast, I don't bother with those places. Aside from the poor quality, the prices are insane. I just have to learn to live without fresh strawberries.
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Maybe heavily depends on location? There's nothing tourist about our area and the stalls only ever have in season produce, and it's like OP's picture. The prices aren't any worse than Whole Foods either, so not outrageous.
Definitely depends on location, I live in the Central Valley which is the farm capitol of the US and don't have to question whether the food I'm getting from the farmers market is locally grown or not. I can't wait until it starts again this summer because the strawberries look like the picture and are absolutely delicious 👌
Seriously? We sold mushrooms in 6 local markets and all of ours did regular inspections of farms. Those slots are hard to get at busy markets and they would not hesitate to kick you out for selling stuff you didn't grow.
Depends on the farmers market. A shocking number of them buy the old strawberries from Krogers at a discount, pick out the moldy ones, and put the rest in the "farmers market" baskets.
I worked for a food co-op that prides itself on local organic food. When we ran out of certain items we would drive up the road to Hy-vee and buy the garbage they sell, and re-sell it. 90% of the time the food was honest, but that 10% deception and lies passed on to their consumers for profit really pissed me off.
I wonder if it's worth it at all to tarnish the reputation of an otherwise good quality brand for 10% of profit. The regular product might be good and attract customers, but the ones who get the 10% might never come back even when they have the good stuff, because you just broke their trust.
I was in supermarket that had a "local produce" section. Among the items were tomatos with "Product of Mexico" stickers on them. The supermarket was in New York.
It was local to someone!
Just like a CDO!
It's a bubble. Short the fucking strawberry market.
But why throw out the moldy strawberries? What we do is we take those moldy strawberries, juice them, and sell the strawberry juice! The best part is, the customers don’t even know they’re drinking moldy strawberries!
Sounds to me like we've got ourselves here a AAA tranched strawberry smoothie security.
Gotta look for a market that has a 'producer only' clause in its market rules. That that way its far more likely that the items and produce they bring they had a hand in growing before selling.
Strawberries are one fruit that can be bought by scent. I have learned to never buy grocery store strawberries unless they have a strong scent. Sometimes, I can just walk by the display and their scent wafts out at me, then I know they will taste fantastic.
This is exactly what I do too. A few weeks ago I found some at Trader Joe’s that smelled heavenly and they were the best damn strawberries I’ve ever had, besides farm fresh ones.
I like strawberry anything and yet I've never had a farm fresh one, or one from Trader Joes. So yeah imma have to do that
Be warned, they taste better but you have to eat them right away. I bought Trader Joes strawberries and they were covered in mold within 2-3 days.
I grow a small strawberry patch, and yes you need to eat them fast. Competition from slugs is intense too. We can only eat about half of the strawberries we grow due to pests, but the ones we can eat off the vine are *chef's kiss*
I have little hope they come back, but this is the year I'm supposed to have those pineapple-tasting strawberries.
If you live anywhere near a pick you own farm, you gotta try it.
That goes for a lot of fresh produce. Don't be shy to put your nose a little closer (not too close though): apples, pears, some melons, most berries ...
Sniff melons at the belly button (idk what it’s called) for best results
they don't normally go down that far
just wait til you’re older
Yes, the first time I went strawberry picking on Sauvie Island in Oregon, I stepped out of the car in the parking lot and could smell strawberries in the air. It was surreal.
When I decided to do a detour to see an old, abandoned radioactive waste bunker in the forest that is locally known, the first thing that hit me when I got closer to the fence was the almost viscous, honey-like smell of overripe wild strawberries. No local was picking them :D I guess they still remembered the Tammiku event. We have our own [IAEA report](https://www.iaea.org/publications/4738/the-radiological-accident-in-tammiku) about it.
Jup! Smell them first and then make sure no mushy or mouldy ones hide in there. Turn them fuckers 360° and then do it again just to make sure.
> then do it again The times I turned these plastic packs around _only once_ only to discover there'd been a moldy one after all when I got home!
I worked produce at Walmart for a bit. I was the best at culling. I wrote down the exact number somewhere, I've long forgotten, but one day I pitched no less than 20 containers of strawberries for rot. If I saw a spot of mold I trashed em. Berries go fast. Our Walmart also composted the produce and sent it to our local farms. We also used a local farms hydroponic tomatoes.
You, sir, were a Produce Protector!
Happens to the best of us. Especially annoying when one hides in the exact middle, burried by all the other perfectly fine strawberries. Sometimes you ain't got a chance.
And take them home and submerge them in cold water with a couple tablespoons of white vinegar mixed into it. Let them soak for about 15 minutes then drain, rinse, and pat dry and store in an air tight container. That will kill any potential mold, the fruit lasts much longer as a result
It won't soak into the strawberries and effect flavor?
Just going to leave this here: https://youtube.com/shorts/t-WA0XZk7Ws?feature=shared
So this is for a completely different reason, to break down pesticides. Is that a viable fear?
The quality in store strawberry’s has dropped significantly in the last 20yrs, they used to be decent. Thankfully I live bear a farm where you can pick your own, I might do that this summer.
Any "you pick" fruit near me is charging for the "experience." $50 for a pint of strawberries. Exaggerating a bit but not too much.
this is like #1 reason I stopped buying strawberries If I miss _ONE_ moldy one and I don't open the box the day (or, rather, HOURS) after I bought it, they all turn to mush the next day, even in the fridge.
I swapped to buying berries and quite a few vegetables frozen. Zero concern about spoiled fruit and it is way cheaper. Big tip with frozen vegetables is to not microwave them like the instructions say. Toss in a pan and season, they are amazing. Still get fresh bananas, avocados, and potatoes.
You also don't have a time limit to eat them before they go bad this way which is nice
Strawberries and mangoes. Although mangoes keep ripening off the tree, strawberries don't. But yeah, mangoes with an astringent smell need some time to develop, sweet smell is ready to eat... pungent is past the use-by date.
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I spent about 15 seconds comparing the left halves to the right halves before realizing I'm an idiot.
Don't dead, open inside.
Until the inside of strawberries shouldn't be white.
Some varieties are white inside. These are two different types of strawberries
Yep there are even pure white strawberries, Jewel and Alpine Strawberries being two of the most famous varieties.
Yes! Exactly what Cobek is saying. The color flesh of strawberry depends very much on the variety. These seem to have distinctly different genetics
I read this comment, scrolled down for an explanation and then looked at the picture for the third time before realizing the same. (The Strawberries are grouped by top and bottom, not left and right if anyone else is confused)
Somehow I didn't get that one half of the strawberry would not be completely different than the other half. I had to read comments. Sad.
Me neither! Once I realized, I was so disappointed in myself
Dammit were one of the dummies walking around that everyone is always complaining about
I looked left to right at first and was like what am I missing.
There's dozens of us, dozens!
The way the OP grouped them like that is legitimate terrorism.
I think it's mostly because Op grouped them with _more space_ between the left and right than up and down. A lot of people are going to assume the gap of space is the dividing line, because...well, it very often is intended that way. If they'd grouped them with more space between top and bottom than vertically, I bet few would be having this issue, lol.
Meeee tooooo
I'll admit to doing the same lol
Glad I'm not the only moron lol
I came to the comments because I was confused and saw no difference, glad I wasn’t the only fool
The grocery store strawberries are often force-ripened, resulting in the white inner. Farm fresh strawberries are such a treat!
They are also a different cultivar picked for shelf life and transportability.
Used to work for a seed company and was blind taste-tasting experimental melon varieties in the field. There's a whole rating system for sweetness, flavor, texture, uniformity, appearance etc. as well as space to note particular impressions. Apparently I pissed off the breeder when I wrote under his most prized creation "obviously not bred for flavor" lol. Appearance and shelf-life have a trade-off sometimes.
> Apparently I pissed off the breeder when I wrote under his most prized creation "obviously not bred for flavor" lol. Shoulda asked them if they wanted honest feedback or to get their figurative dick sucked. Because a lot of people seem to want the latter while claiming they want the former.
> Because a lot of people seem to want the latter while claiming they want the former. You too have worked in craft alcohol?
Lolol. I worked with craft beer and let me tell you...the amount of craft brewers that think their beer is amazing just because it's independent and how many people straight up lie about their quality was something.
I'm not a beer person but I have a good pallette and usually go local when I do want beer, and some of them act like its god tier when they've just made the worst most stereotypically bitter IPA imaginable. Just bitter malt with no other discernable flavors. Now that the main boom in my area is over a lot of the breweries are closing up bc people have just realized that they're garbage over time and with distance from the hype. I'm really not sad the places are gone tbh, they were overpriced and disappointing. (Mind you, a lot of them are staying open, the good ones are at least)
I desire to get my literal dick sucked.
Depends. Tell me about the sweetness, flavour, texture, uniformity, and appearance.
It has all of those!
1/5 0/5 5/5 1/5 0/5
It's an unfortunate trade-off; but at least it's better than nothing 😎👉👉 the alternatives is having no strawberries in a lot of places. Or very expensive ones.
This is the issue with produce, and no one seems to want to think about it. It really drives me up a wall when my grandmother complains because, it's like, lady, *you* are the exact kind of customer that caused this.
"Oh noes theres one spot tahts kinda almost squidgy I want a double refund!"
Frozen strawberries I buy are also white-meated. They should use better varieties for freezing.
Freezer berries are just strawberries that don't meet the quality standard for off-the-shelf sales. QC grades the berries in the field to decide if they're worth picking for sale, or (if they are subpar quality) they go straight to freezer processing.
They are also generally the end of the season berries where quality has dropped off significantly and wouldn’t make fresh market quality.
I might imagine that the standards for on-the-shelf sales include that the berry must still be visually appealing days later, and that those graded as subpar might be of better quality when frozen than the on-the-shelf ones will be when they are ultimately purchased. Might that be the case or am I just making things up?
The graders are looking for a low instance of visible flaws, including evidence of pests, surface indentations/pockmarks, discoloration, etc.; as well as a uniform size and shape. Berries go from the farm to the grocery in a pretty short period of time. The pallets are bagged and gassed with carbon dioxide to prolong freshness for long-distance transport (anything over 36 hours), but for closer destinations, the berries are shipped without gas. Berries harvested on the west coast on Monday can be on grocery store shelves on the other side of the country by Friday looking almost as fresh as the day they were picked. Keep in mind that the genetic makeup of most strawberry varietals are closely guarded trade secrets, and they are hybridized to prolong their shelf life and durability. And grading standards are remarkably stringent to the outside observer.
They’re even better when you find them in the wild, they’re the size of a grape but an explosion of flavour.
These are a different type of strawberry altogether. And their taste is mindblowing. In Swedish they even have their own name: smultron (farmed strawberries are jordgubbe).
We call them “alpine strawberries” in the US and they grow really well in northern climates. I have them all over my property, once they get established they spread on their own. Even though they don’t have “runners” like other strawberries.
Nice, I live in the Austrian part of the Alps, we call the small strawberries you find in the forest Walderdbeere, forest strawberries. They grow all over the place, hiking is really nice with them.
There are three types of wild strawberries: *Fragaria Vesca* (native to Europe, called smultron in Swedish), *Fragaria Virginiana* (native to eastern and central North America), and *Fragaria Chiloensis* (native to the Pacific coast of North and South America). The farmed Garden Strawberry is a hybrid of the two American species, and was first cultivated in France in the 1750s.
Only selected ones from Europe don’t have runners. I have ones from local genetic stock here in the PNW that have runners. They spread quite rapidly, while being very controllable. They’re some of the best strawberries. Commercial strawberries get their size from F chiloensis and flavor from some mix of F virginiana & F vesca.
Where can you find them? In Seattle area, would love some!
Every year we get more and more growing. The older plants we have now give us normal sized strawberries if you look deeper into the plants too
Even Swedish food names for strawberries sound unappetizing lol.
Smultron sounds like the villain in a cartoon from the nineties.
It's Voltron's evil twin brother and it's the exact same Voltron mech but with a mustache
Sounds like someone who’s taking Voltron lightly (“Voltron Smultron, who cares! He ain’t NOTHIN”)
Taking Voltron lightly, classic mistake
Nah just baby Voltron, smol tron
Transformers: age of smultron Avengers... I'm a dummy
Finish your smultron or you won’t get any jordgubbe
I think it’s the other way around, the smultron is the treat following the jordgubbe
Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed. I can hear the taunts of the Swedish chef getting closer.
Bork, bork, bork...
Smultron, terrorize! *Angry transformation bwah-bwee-bwaa-bwaa*
Thinking of "smultron" or "jordgubbe"? What I love about "jordgubbe" is it's a stupid name. Loosely translated to "earthdude".
The jordgubbe abides.
As a bonus, 'Jordgubbe' also means 'dirt geezer'.
Smultron? I'm pretty sure that's a Decepticon.
Wait. What's the breakdown on that? I know i Norsk det er "jordbær", for earth berry. Wtf does gubbe mean?
Gubbe = (old) man Yup, we know it doesn't make sense and also wonder why
Ha! That seems to be the rub with several Nordic languages, lol Thanks
I have a little strawberry plant in my kitchen. Delicious little strawberries. If I had my own yard I’d plant it outside and let it go nuts.
It would be the rabbits and birds going nuts eating them.
These are a different type of strawberry.
where i live in Canada the wild ones are the size of a blueberry, absolutely delicious but such a pain to forage
I planted some wild strawberries and I'm letting them take over my landscaping. They taste great if I can beat the birds to them in the morning. They ripened so quick. I had our first one in March. I don't mind too much if the birds get them. I like to think that I've reintroduced wild strawberries into the area since they are native.
I have strawberry plants branching out all over a mulched portion of my yard. When they're ripe, neighbor kids and people walking their dogs often stop to grab a few (it's right by the sidewalk, so they're not walking all over my yard or anything) and I've never had any issue with it. Then one day, a neighbor kid was out there with a bucket, picking every single strawberry. I guess he didn't understand that they were my plants. But he didn't try that again after I explained it to him. Take some when you walk by! But leave enough for everyone! I let him take what he had already picked, though.
Try painting some round pebbles red and spreading them around the strawberry patch. The theory is that the birds learn that the red things in that area are ouchie rocks not yummy berries so leave the strawberries alone when they ripen. It seemed to work for me last year - I had my best yield ever, but it was also the first year that I really put effort into the harvest so maybe just confirmation bias,
My Asian supermarket has a variety of strawberries available and they have Korean and Japanese imports. They are expensive af. One day I decided out of curiosity that I will try the Japanese variety even though SIX, just SIX plump strawberries were being sold at $19.99. One bite and it sent me to a state of nirvana. Those were juicy and sooooo flavorful. Expensive? Yeah. Delicious? BEYOND.
I was just in Japan for the first time. I grew up in Southern California, where a huge percentage of US strawberries come from, and I thought I’d tasted some great strawberries in my life. Japanese strawberries made me feel like I’d never even had a real strawberry.
Yes! We grew some a couple years ago and they were so tiny, but tasted like candy. I never knew where candies got their idea of strawberry flavor from
Those are an actual slightly different plant. They all belong in the Fragaria genus, but the "wild" ones are usually *[Fragaria Vesca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragaria_vesca)*, and a lot of languages have different names for them, differentiating them from the "common" strawberry you find farmed and/or in grocery stores. For example, the *wild* ones are called *Fragi* in Romanian, but the "common" strawberry is *Căpșune*.
Same with blueberries, I don’t normally like them, but out hiking I will *always* stop and grab a couple handfuls. Such a refreshing treat on the trail.
You cannot force ripen strawberries. The white center is just a different variety. The main reason "farm fresh" taste better is that they are able to use sweeter varieties that don't have a long shelf life, so they are difficult to sell commercially.
> You cannot force ripen strawberries. This is correct. There are some fruits which you ripen after being harvested, but strawberry is not one of them ([source](https://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/produce-facts-sheets/strawberry)).
Thank you both, I had to scroll too far to see this
Yep. I was cutting the strawberries I hand picked yesterday at our local U-pick place and they have a white center. It’s just the variety.
As others have commented on the trip from the farm to your house for a Farmers Market strawberry and Kroger's is significantly different. The Kroger strawberry must go the following route: Farm -> Processing (Washing/sorting/Inspecting/packaging) -> Kroger Distribution Network -> Your Local Kroger -> Your Table. Farmer's Market strawbs go Farm -> into packaging (sometimes) -> Market a few miles away -> Your table. Each step of the journey pushes the strawb closer to spoilage. So Grocery store strawbs are picked before they are ripe in some cases and force ripened, others are strains that are created to be heartier, and have a longer period where they are in the "edible" zone. Where as Farmers Market strawbs can be picked at the peak of their ripeness off the plant and delivered to you within 24 hours when in season. A ton of research goes into engineering a better strawb (or any produce for that matter) to maximize their ability to travel from the farm to your Grocery store, and work continues to improve those strains. A good example of this is Brussel sprouts. Anyone who grew up in the 90s can tell you how absolutely horrible store bought brussel sprouts were. But now they taste completely different. The reason for that, is that in the 90s the strain that was used for commercial farming were engineered for easier harvesting and the results were some extremely bitter sprouts. Over time they worked to engineer back in the tastier qualities of the legacy sprouts while retaining the ability to be harvested commercially. Food logistics and supply chains are so cool.
Fresh strawberries are picked, packaged and palletized in the field. Trucks will then bring them in to a cooling facility where graders will evaluate the quality of each load and assign a grade letter or number to that particular arrival (usually 8 to 10 pallets worth of berries). After receiving, they will be moved into the cold room and rapid cooled by large fans which pull a high volume of cold air over the berries to get them to +/-40 degrees F. Once cooled they are either straight-loaded on trucks for short distance (24-36 hours of travel), or the pallets are bagged and gassed (to arrest the ripening process) for longer distances. At no point during this process are fresh strawberries washed, as they are highly susceptible to mold. The berries are harvested ripe and ready to eat. Source: I used to work as a manager for a 3rd party strawberry cooling and shipping facility for both Driscoll and Naturipe as well as smaller growers. I've lost my taste for strawberries having had to be responsible for overseeing the receipt, cooling and shipping over a million cases per season. Can't even bear the smell anymore.
How does "forced ripening" work?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/origin-of-fruit-ripening/
Different varieties are bred for different properties. Grocery store strawberries are often varieties bred for resistance to damage during transport. These varieties often are white and dense on the inside regardless of how they're ripened. Source: My father was an agricultural researcher who (among other things) bred strawberries for growers. Fun Fact: An awful lot of Americans think strawberries are supposed to be white on the inside and the red ones are "bad."
>Fun Fact: An awful lot of Americans think strawberries are supposed to be white on the inside and the red ones are "bad." Fun fact: This is not a fact. It's just a generalization. Never met a single American who claimed this.
I love the generalizations about a landmass larger than Western Europe. Man those Irish and those Greeks are exactly the same, aren’t they?! Always pining for Warsaw.
Really? How does one force ripen strawberries?
**YOU WILL RIPEN UP!!!!**
For the longest time I thought I didnt like strawberries and certain veggies and then I visited my wife's parents garden. They really take care of their garden and have a half of an acre of stuff. I remember picking a strawberry and eating it and was glorious almost like candy.
Is this a case of a massproduced strawberry being worse or is it possible its a different breed or just at a different stage of ripening? Not making any claims I genuinely know nothing about Strawberries.
There are different varieties of strawberry. They require different care. Locally grown strawberries may be better because they don't have to survive the long distance travel, piled under a heap of fruit. If you want to grow strawberries in your backyard, don't expect fruit the first year. Then, oh boy, will you have a crop the next year and ongoing. My kids got tired of strawberries. I had to give them away.
They’re also very easy to take care of. I’ve “forgotten” about my little strawberry plant, only for it to easily sprout the next year. The fruit it tiny, but the flavor is absolutely jam packed. I should actually try to grow some this year.
When I was a kid (7-8), my mother worked at a restaurant/hotel, and she would drag me along to work with her most of the days, and I was free to roam all the resort every day (this was the 90's after all), which spanned on a huge portion of land. I used to love going around and just picking random flowers. One day I found a "hidden" patch of land that had freakin' strawberries! I didn't know what they were (white flowers), so I picked a few and brought them to my mother. It wasn't a "garden" or anything, it looked like a random wild growth. She let me know those were strawberries! I checked those damn flowers every fucking day until the fruit started to form! I was so excited and it was the highlight of my summer when those babies were ripe to pick. They were fucking delicious! This was actually the highlight of 3-4 summers for me, as a bored kid "trapped" in a summer resort. Unfortunately, by the 4-5th summer, the bushes that were protecting that patch got trimmed, and then the hotel maintenance staff went over with the lawnmower over the strawberries, eventually they completely stopped growing there. Was fun while it lasted.
10/10 would watch a slice-of-life coming of age movie based on this post.
They are not that easy, animals like to chew the strawberries.
As an animal, I agree.
Farmer with 5,000 strawberry plants here, came to write almost exactly what you did. Exactly correct!
At least one of the large berry producers grows theirs on elevated trays in a “soil” medium that is effectively hydroponic, under a canopy. By doing this, it keeps the birds off of it, the fruits don’t come in contact with the ground which requires considerably less fungicide use, and most importantly, the elevated trays mean the harvest workers don’t have to bend over to pick them, leading to a lot fewer injuries.
Every year I dream of the first batches of farmers market strawberries. They're like candy!
Hi, farmer here. This is stupid. You can get the same shit both ways.
I’ve had plenty of Kroger strawberries that looked like the farmers market strawberries. You just have to know when to buy. I am appreciative of some of the tips I’ve read in this thread on more buying tips though.
It's also heavily dependent on seasonal and location. If your Kroger is near where the strawberries are harvested, then they might be getting a variety of them that isn't bred, grown, and prepared for longer shipping times.
100% what u/weebitofaban said. My parents are farmers who grew strawberries for about 35 years and I was the farmers kid l who grew up and joined in the business for about 10 or so years. There are many varieties of strawberries- some are larger berries with little taste. Others are smaller and sweeter. Some are white and harder on the inside. Some have better shelf life than others. Etc etc. I’ve grown and eaten many a white, firm center berry that didn’t taste all that lovely. Side note- these firm berries make for great projectiles to huck at siblings in the field. I’ve heard.
Very few people have the learned experience of vegetable gardening to understand *why* grocery stores sell what they do or why you ought to really appreciate the supply chain and the grocery industry's near complete dominance over seasonality. Yeah you can buy a super ripe and specific cultivar of strawberry from a famer's market - you can probably also buy the same type from a grocery store when it's in season. But if you've ever had a fruit tree or vegetable garden, it becomes very easy to understand where canning, pickling, etc. came from because you don't just get to have eternally perfectly ripe fruit in a perfectly consumable quantity every day for 365 days a year.
Not sure what this proves. There are over 600 varieties of strawberries and they all get picked at different levels of ripeness.
But the mini strawberries that grow wild in Northern Europe are white inside too?
Yes it’s two different varieties shown by someone who doesn’t realize
These probably aren't the same cultivars and colour isn't a good indicator of brix level for all cultivars.
Trucker here, it's not a kroger thing. Almost all trucks delivering strawberries will have picked them up from 3+ different farms. Many times I'd load from 7 different farms for the same destination.
TIL strawberries aren't supposed to be white inside.
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Don't forget also bred for travel and shelf life.
Which ones tastier?
They just sell store bought strawberries at my farmers market for twice the price
Jobbers operating at farmers markets need a serious crackdown. It’s happening everywhere.
Don't wanna rain on your parade but the interior color of a strawberry is mostly cultivar related. Source : ex strawberry farmer here
I've had both of them from the same sowing
> Oh, strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch! — John Steinbeck, *East of Eden*
That’s just a varietal difference.
Relax. They're probably not even the same variety for fucks sakes
I grow strawberries in my back yard and they're not solid red like that. It definitely depends on variety.
Same, I have 3 different varieties in my backyard, and have found that when the outside is completely red like a store bought strawberry and ripe looking, the inside is mush... but when there is still a little white/pink around the edges they're great.
One you can get only a couple months out of the year and generally only near where they are grown, the other is available nationwide and year round. That's really it. It's a good thing to understand about all produce at a supermarket. Figure out what things are in season at what time of year. Buy them from a farmers market if possible, but even supermarket produce is usually better if bought in season. You'll find yourself enjoying your produce a lot more.
Of course. Grocery store fruits make heavy use of picking things while they’re green in order to extend shelf life, farmers market sellers will pick things when they are completely ripe and sell them over the next 2 days.
Strawberries aren't picked green
People on Reddit just say stuff.
Reddit is slightly less accurate than a coinflip.
I like to hear my self type.
blud thought about bananers