‘Pineberry’ soon to grace UK supermarket shelves
It is said to combine a flavour and smell like a pineapple’s with the shape and texture of a strawberry. It starts off green, gradually turning paler as it ripens.
Greengrocer, Pinder Dayal, from Fresh Choice in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, who took delivery of her first order of pineberries last week said: ‘We’ve already sold 30 punnets – our customers are buying them because they’re intrigued – and they taste great too.
Despite their unusual smell and taste, pineberries have the same genetic make-up as the common strawberry.
The snow-white berries – that to an uninformed shopper may look more like an under-ripe strawberry - are smaller than most commercially grown strawberries, measuring between 15 and 23mm across, slightly less than an inch.
It is their fresh, juicy, sweet and acid flavour with a highly aromatic smell – more akin to a pineapple – that inspired the name.
Dutch growers, Beekers Berries, began exporting pineberries to our shores last month along with another strawberry variety known as the ‘strasberry’, which tastes like a raspberry crossed with a strawberry.
‘The strasberries only came in yesterday and people are already showing a lot of interest in those too,’ Miss Dayal said. ‘We ordered the pineberries and strasberries as soon as our supplier told us about them – we’d have bought them years ago if we could.’
Both varieties are expected to be available from specialist shops until mid to late December.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
