How Driscoll’s Reinvented the Strawberry | Hacker News Reader

How Driscoll’s Reinvented the Strawberry

newyorker.com

58 pointsbdr30 comments

Give me ugly, small, tasty berries any day instead of the opposite of that. Wonder if strawberries will join tomatoes and apples: return to variety, more focus on taste vs aesthetics.

Yes please. Tired of seeing these tasteless, excessively large watery strawberries that suck all the joy out of eating one.

Peaches are the worst casualty of this trend in Big Produce.

It's sad that tomatoes have gotten so bland that nowadays I instinctively correlate ugliness with good taste.

When I see an asymmetric tomato, in both size and color, I think, "Hey I bet that tastes good..".

EDIT: s/funny/sad/

Same with apples, at least around here. The correlation is usually "small, ugly, wrinkly → tasty and cheaper". Plus almost always produced nearer.

I frankly don't know why anyone buys the shiny ones more than once.

Most people just don't know that fruits and vegetable can actually taste good.

I learned that I liked cooked carrots at the age of 22. I spend 2 decades thinking they tasted horrible, because the only one I ate were the one I had in school.

For someone like me, there is no amount of apple flavor that outweighs the texture of a good apple. I don't eat many apples, but if apples were entirely tasteless (and that wasn't weird...), I wouldn't eat any fewer apples, because the best thing about biting into an apple is the "snap!" and the mouthfeel. One reason I don't buy and eat more apples now is that I have no reliable way to tell if a nice-looking apple will provide that, or whether it will be soft. Biting into an apple which is soft is not worth five good ones, so I mostly do not bother. :/

I pretty much only get these big ol Honeycrisp apples, they've never let me down and last possibly forever in the refrigerator (need to do more research) - http://www.honeybearbrands.com/products/

Maybe you're getting some bad Driscoll's. I've been impressed with the improvement in both looks and taste over the past few years. They also sometimes offer giant, beautiful strawberries which one would expect would sacrifice taste for looks - but they don't.

I agree that tomatoes are terrible.

I have no doubt everyone who grew up with strawberries in the yard thinks the same. I don't expect a berry to get from lab to farm to grocer and be able to compete with something fresh picked that summer morning.

Is being patronising a marketing tactic, or were the "Joy Makers" just not briefed on how to speak to journalists about their competition? I can't imagine anything more offputting coming from a company whose main competition is essentially pro-bono researchers than "you don't know how to enjoy our (proprietary) product". A statement of healthy competition would at least have maintained a public image.

Driscoll's fruit is complete and utter shit in terms of quality and taste. I avoid their brand at all costs.

i could not agree more. Ohhh these Strawberries look great.... taste like water

Also their labor practices are shit. But enjoy those bland berries...

https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/08/01/driscolls-tied-to-centr...

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-18/workers-who-pick-your...

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/08/07/209925420/why...

Previous article from Bloomberg in 2015 about Driscoll's: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-29/how-drisc...

Driscoll blackberries are incredible. The size of my thumb (huge) and a sweet taste almost like wine. Respect from me for the work that must have gone into all aspects of breeding, growing, transporting and marketing.

They are! They're just only that good one fifth of the time.

Yes! I totally agree with everyone else about Driscoll strawberries (pretty but not sweet, a bit tart), but their blackberries are awesome (although only sometimes!). I've had the small organic ones that are wonderful, but also the big conventional monstrous ones that just melt in your mouth that are sweet, but closer to wine than the small ones. I've also had just mediocre blackberries from them - I think mediocre blackberries are better than mediocre strawberries though.

For years we have commented and purchased Driscolls.. They are the most flavorful and last even longer than picked-your-own by me..

What i wonder is how driscoll and others are all grouped together in the supermarket... The only difference is the label. Are they from the same growers fields? How does a grocery store receive its berries?

I'm a produce buyer for a small grocery in Maine. We focus on local vegetables, but also buy produce from the national supply chain.

We work with a broker at the Chelsea produce market in Chelsea, MA. Twice a week, I email him an order for the produce we need from the national market, specifying details about each product (size, grower, production region). He uses his knowledge and relationships to buy the best product he can, from the large wholesalers there. The market has around 240 dock bays, and is open from 2 am to noon. We send a truck down to arrive at 8 am, and pickup the produce from the wholesalers where our broker ordered.

The overall produce market is structured into growers, that grow and harvest the crops. Packers, that purchase crops from the growers, wash, cool and pack them, and shippers, that purchase from packers. The wholesalers in Boston purchase from shippers, and sell to regional retail and wholesale customers. Many companies are vertically integrated, and own multiple links in this chain. Larger groceries and supermarkets either negotiate directly with the packers, or the wholesalers at the Chelsea market. A large store can commit to buying on a large enough scale to drive their retail price below what I can pay wholesale during the peak season for a commodity.

Thanks for a very informative look behind the scenes!

Woah, where in Maine? I never see anyone from Maine on HN, since we're basically the furthest state from the silicon valley as you can get.

Portland

I don't know the USA geography very well as I'm not a native, but isn't Portland in Oregon? Or are there more than one Portland cities?

Oh boy, you're in for a surprise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_common_U.S....

Lots of states use the same names over and over. For example, Portland, OR being named after Portland, Maine. It gets worse, because some states have multiple towns of the same name. There are five different towns in Wisconsin all called Springfield!

Oh wow...dayum.

I knew that Springfield was used for the Simpsons town because there we so many that used that name, but I thought it was just an oddity or something.

I guess I was indeed in for a surprise!

Thanks for the link!

In grocery stores there are basically two ways items get shelved and stocked. For bigger brands (Lays for instance) the truck drivers will actually bring the stock to the aisles and shelve them according to how Lays wants it done. Grocery store never touches it. The other way is for smaller brands, they ship to the grocery store and store employees stock the aisles.

This is why stuff like chips, soft drinks, cereal, and probably even fruit from large companies always seems so organized together.

There are entire industries of analysts and consultants who work with companies like P&G, Heinz, Frito-Lay, Coca-cola who define shelf layout in every store. It's called a planogram. First time a store employee touches a Driscolls clamshell is likely when the cashier scans it.

Related: interesting Econtalk episode with a sales manager at Frito-Lay about production, distribution (including stocking) and marketing of their chips: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/08/odonohoe_on_pot.htm...

At least here, that is false for Driscolls. Both our local grocery chains have store employees stock them, and I've seen them do it.

You're right about PepsiCo/Frito-Lay and other similar brands stocking shelves themselves, due to product quality and freshness being core parts of their branding.

The only fresh strawberries I ever eat are local and in season. Everything else is just too disappointing.

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