WHITE and pink strawberries in our own time - what an age to be alive.
Hort Innovation in conjunction with the Qld Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF Qld) announced the new varieties, Pink and White, the result of years of a successful strawberry breeding program.
The new varieties were announced, and put on display at the national berry conference, BerryQuest International 2022, being held on the Gold Coast this week.
This reporter had the privilege of being one of the first (as far as he knows) to taste the new varieties.
To date, strawberries largely haven't had pineapple or tropical undertones.
The new variety, Pink, defies that and delivers a tropical hit.
It's a strong strawberry flavour, and then some. To put it another way, it's more strawberry than strawberries in general.
There is almost a trick on the brain at play as well.
Like much of western society, the brain-to-tastebud connection of this consumer resists eating a whitish or pale strawberry.
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So it is something of a mind trip to bite into a fully ripe, yet lighter coloured strawberry and experience a fully-established ripeness.
For an alternative fruit comparison, it's as if the white rind of a watermelon tasted like the red flesh, all the way to the skin.
Beneath the pinkish skin is a stark white flesh which comes as something of a shock as well.
The marketing potential for the new Pink and White strawberry varieties is huge.
This also presents an interesting challenge: Will consumers be resistant to eating a lighter-fleshed berry?
It will take some careful and clever marketing to counter that and encourage berry fans to dive into something new.
To get even more detailed, the texture of the Pink was firm, yet juicy. One would assume this would be of particular benefit for use in cooking and baking.
In fact, the new varieties boast bred-in attributes such as longer shelf life, being easier to pick and more resistant to bruising, all of which will surely become important marketing angles when they eventually hit supermarket shelves.
Alternate colours elsewhere
WHILE they are new to the Australian landscape, alternative coloured strawberries aren't entirely groundbreaking.
Berry giant Driscoll's released the rosé strawberry (and rosé raspberries) in 2019, which reportedly taste like the warm weather wine they are named after.
The company has also released yellow strawberries, Tropical Bliss, which have "notes of tropical punch, pineapple, and passionfruit" according to the website.
Another left-of-field entry is the "pineberry", a white strawberry with reddish/pink achenes (seeds) and a pineapple-like flavour, emerging from South America in about 2002, and subsequently cultivated in Belgium and exported from the Netherlands.
In fact, local hardware store Bunnings sells pineberry plants, as well as "Bubbleberry" (a berry with hints of bubblegum), plus the "Strasberry" (a juicy strawberry which resembles a raspberry, including a mild raspberry flavour).
Still, these are more novelty varieties for the home gardener and probably not set to make a commercial impact as is hoped the Pink and White varieties will.
Very eatable
IT would be easy to wolf through an entire punnet of the new berries, or also just as easily imagine them adorning the top of a pink-tinted pavlova, or within a pascal-coloured compote.
With the current trend of baby gender reveals, surely there is an avenue to make these celebrations berry-driven, with guests served up either a blueberry-based dish or a Pink strawberry-inspired dessert as a means of delivering the news that bub is a boy or a girl.
The organisations behind the new varieties are now seeking growers to take up commercial plantings.
That may mean some leaps of faith by farmers.
Once growing on larger scales, getting them in front of consumers will be an important following step.
Here's hoping the trend of seeking out new culinary adventures holds out for those wanting to dive into Pink and White strawberries.
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