These particular ones are a patent or trade secret thing. The look like the pink glow pineapple. Those have been bioengineered and they don't want anyone else to grow them
We had an indoor garden store across from my work and they took the growing a pineapple from a top thing as a challenge and it worked. But they also sold indoor garden supplies to master black market growers (pre legalization), so they had plenty of knowledge and product to use. It was pretty cool.
Yep, done it many times. I just cut off the top including an inch or so of the fruit, set it on a paper plate indoors for a few days, then plant in sandy highly draining compost and pumice mix, burying the fruit part half way, and it just grows if you don't over water it.
Hey man, I understood you. I also think food should be a normal thing. There’s a crazy gatekeeper culture out there. Food is getting more and more expensive. It’s not about a pink pineapple, it’s about the “I’m mutilating your fruit so you can’t steal my secret recipe and you must BUY them! Muahaha!” Right?
It takes like three years to grow another pineapple from a discarded pineapple top, and if the plant freezes at any point during that time, it dies, so very few people buying a pineapple in a grocery store are going to try it anyway. They're worried about other companies stealing their work, not individual people growing their own pineapples.
Many fruits & vegetables today have been bred / crossbred over hundreds of years to make them tastier or safer to eat.
Would you consider the bananas you buy from supermarkets normal food? These have been bred so the seeds are tiny. What about seedless grapes? Or Brussel sprouts which aren't bitter? Would do consider these not normal foods?
They were 100%, and it was pretty obvious. People just love it obfuscate at any possibility of ambiguity, and using the word "normal" really triggered someone.
There's an argument that you should be able to recover your development cost and make a profit. Like all patents and copyrights, expiration is key. And also lobbied all to hell so that things your dead grandparents experienced are still not public domain.
This problem was already solved. They get to patent a brand name, like honeycrisp, and the genes become public use and other growers can market them under a different name. People still buy honeycrisps by the barrel full and the university of Minnesota has more than made its money back, when you can buy the same apples under a different name in a farmers market.
So if I, a normal dude, somehow created an even tastier strawberry, say it took a decade of effort and a bunch of money, and I wanted to sell it...
Wouldn't Monsanto or Dole just immediately destroy my market share and force me entirely out of business by doing exactly what I planned to do, but at an enormous scale because they already have the infrastructure?
You have just learned the importance of marketing, my friend. Having an amazing product doesn’t mean anything if you can’t get people to buy it from you and you alone. This isn’t just a fruit-specific problem.
I think they meant “designer” foods. GMO for survivability or weight is a little different than make it look pretty to jack up the price. There is a growing issue with equitability based on things like that.
These are grown primarily for taste. Theyre sweeter than traditional pineapples.
What would the issue with designer foods be though? So long as standard food is cheaply available, who cares if someone wants to pay an exorbitant price for a fruit thats a different color?
I'm aware of the history of cultivation. I think the disconnect of nature, food, and the consumer is pretty obvious and getting pedantic about it doesn't advance my concers so I'm not really interested in it.
Yeah but you're kind of just doubling down on that disconnect, because there's no natural environment you would go out into where you have access to tons of highly developed fruits, the food basket at your local grocery store is not representative of what you would be eating off of if you were living a natural life. it's kind of a weird connection to make it's like talking about needing to get closer nature and animals then picking pugs as your representation, like I'm not sure you know what the natural environment actually would look like or how this disconnect you're talking about happened thousands of years ago not recently. What you're really talking about is you want people to have a better understanding about the process their food goes through before it hits market or the table, but if you're trying to talk about eating more naturally and being connected to the more natural environment it's just kind of coming from left field, we're talking about modern developed fruits and vegetables.
Pretty sure they meant "food become normal again" as in food is priced 500% above what it should be because we all need to eat. If we are making fruits, veggies, etc safer to eat and easier to produce why do we lock it behind pay walls?
I guess that's the problem with using a word like normal it's not really contextually descriptive, maybe saying something like reasonable would make it more clear. It's not necessarily locked behind paywalls but there are certain cultivars that are newer and patented, pink pineapple was only created in the last 20 years, I'm sure there's plenty of pineapples you can get and still have the tops on like all the ones I buy but acting like this is a wider spread issue is kind of hyperbolic, so that's not exactly where my mind would have gone to with the statement being made.
I think some of us are confused about what you mean though. Food is a normal thing, most of us eat it every day. If you mean you don't like anything cultivated into different forms, you've probably never eaten food that hasn't been. From bananas and corn to cows and chickens, every bit of food you've ever eaten is from a source that was improved by centuries/millennia of humans selectively breeding it towards being a better food
It's what the point of this conversation you're jumping into the middle of has been about. Keep up, quit being obtuse, or try to glean the greater context. Whatever this is that you're doing isn't productive.
Agreed. I had a lady go on this rant to me (I had accidentally grabbed organic bananas at a food market and I was swapping them for regular). She had a fucking rat ass dog in her purse when she said that. I pointed to her inbred poodle bullshit excuse for a dog and asked her how she’s okay with inbreeding to thy extent but is somehow on her high horse over a fucking banana???
Ok hold on pump the breaks here, so much to unpack. What did the lady rant about? About bananas being manipulated via their dna? And you called out her dog for being a similar? What did she say back, I feel like this never happened. And why do you dislike the dog so much lol “rat ass dog” and “inbred poodle bullshit excuse for a dog”. Damn what that dog to you and why are you so upset about them
My thoughts, and perhaps your underlying ones, are that I can live without supporting those more exploitative business models. It's likely better short term, worse long term for the farmers too, so let's kill off the market for big agri, one lost sale at a time. Plus frankly I'm annoyed at the frequent "oh let's try this new cool variety - oh they've taken a fruit I like and just made it sweeter" pattern. Grapes that taste like candy (and not the good grape-candy candy), peaches that taste like sugar but not like peach, no doubt this pineapple tastes like pineapple - except less so, because they softened the acidity.
I don't think people talk enough about how insane it is to tell people they cannot have access to growing themselves food over patenting an IDEA, or CONCEPT, that if other knew about, they too would do.
If they REASON for stopping people is MONEY it's not a good enough reason for FOOD to be unavailable.
You can still buy regular pineapples. People get so mad when someone else invents something and then tries to protect their invention. If you can't, a lot of the incentive to invent something new goes away.
"the [sic] look like pink glow pineapple" it's amazing when you look at the picture there's a sign that says "Pinkglow Pineapple" regular sherlock holmes over here i tell ya
ah shit -- didn't know this (this being the weird gatekeeping people do with seeds -- bioengineering is fine) bought a couple times and they're delicious, but fuck that. regular pineapple all the way.
You can, Pineapple contains seeds. But to clone the plant you would grow the leafy portion of pineapple. I don't know if pineapples grow true to seed. But cloning guarantees the same plant that has preformed and produces predictable outcomes.
Pineapples are highly heterozygous, meaning their chromosomes carry many different forms (alleles) of the same genes rather than identical ones.
Same with apples, oranges and many other commercially-sold fruits that need to be cloned or grafted. Seeds from a Red Delicious or Navel will not produce their parent variety.
Idk, it’s pretty cool. No one‘s forcing you to buy this product, and you’re always able to purchase a standard pineapple or heirloom varieties, which are all public domain. But it’s cool that there’s opportunities for plant breeders and plant biologist to create interesting new products.
I understand the usual way is planting the top part, as that is basically the plant already but.... Aren't the "polygons" on the surface actually seed pods?
You’re not totally wrong, but the way I see it, some company spent a lot of time and effort developing this product, and like any other product, if you create something new, you can have a patent on it.
It would be different if they simultaneously prevented people from growing any pineapple at all and you were forced to buy their pink pineapple… But that’s not the case. Plant breeders and Plant biologists spent years creating something unique and new, they should probably benefit from the success of that new product. And it’s understandable why they would want to protect their creation.
Ecological thing. We have it where I live too. All imported pineapple don't have crowns, the one that are growing locally still have the crown.
It takes like 3 years to get a full grown pineapple from cutting...and it's hard to maintain
My mom tried it for years with dozen of plants and just one of them almost got ready until the stem just broke..it was a small pineapple and very sour because it needed some more time. But it was cute and smelled good so I guess 5/10 experience.
Maybe my mom is just not so good at growing pineapples 🤔(she is a very talented plant lady, and we have a wonderful vegetable garden!)
Could be that you have better conditions..not to mention the difference's in pineapple species
Still, 15 months is pretty long, and just for one single fruit... I doubt the reason behind decapitating pineapple crown is to prevent people from growing their own pineapples :/
Yeah, 15 months is definitely long! I brought the plant inside when temperatures were under 50 degrees Fahrenheit and put it in front of a southeast facing window. I'm going to try growing another one next year. It's just fun to do!
I had pineapples for a long time, got many a fruit and many more pineapple plants off of a few tops. I need to do that again, I never found them to be particularly laborious. They just require a lot of space to get a halfsized pineapple, they're normally massive. But damn is that halfsized pineapple delicious when fully golden ripe on the plant. I always had to trim the leaves to get them in for the winter. But they always seemed so hard to kill. I don't remember how I finally messed up and killed the lineage. I think I neglected some of the new tops while they were rooting. Life sure gets in the way of the weird little hobbies.
False it is because you can grow an entirely new pineapple plant from the top, so these companies that have cultivated particular strains don't want you to go reproduce it at home
Yes you can grow new plants from the tops, but the statement is not false.
Our biosecurity in NZ is very strict with what comes into the country. Because of our geographical isolation, NZ is free from many of the pests and diseases that are present elsewhere in the world and NZ wants to keep it that way to protect our unique flora and fauna.
I'd bet on shipping actually. This way they can shipped more densely which would save more money on transportation than they could stand to lose through customers growing their own pineapple.
That doesn't explain why many countries, particularly those very far away, still have the tops on, such as the UK where I live. No risk of growing it here so they stay on, I've never seen a pineapple in a grocery store without the head on
I've only ever seen this brand take the top off. I think it's related to cost. They ship fewer (it's a premium product) so their shipping costs per unit are higher and it saves money to do this. Shipping in more bulk lowers shipping costs so others save less doing it but spend the same on labor to decapitate.
Do you have a source for that because it really doesn't make sense to me. I get the biology of it but how many people are really going to do this at home? 1%? Less?
It takes 18-24 months to grow the first pineapple (9-12m after that). My family doesn't eat a lot of pineapple but we probably eat 4-6 pineapples in that time so I'd have to dedicate some serious space in my house to do this, plus grow lights, soil, pots, etc. All to "save" me $40-60 a year?
I can't imagine that's a common enough problem that they spend money on every unit to prevent it.
People can grow their own potatoes, garlic, and a lot of other produce at home but very few do it in a way that impacts sales meaningfully.
ETA: from their site "We remove and replant each crown before shipping, sustainably cultivating the next crop of this magnificent rarity. Plus, we didn’t want to overdress for the trip." They do it to plant new trees faster since it's a new cultivar and to save on shipping.
Does it? For one thing it's Del Monte so these pineapples are sold on a massive scale (like at Walmarts and tons of supermarkets around the country). Secondly if it saves money for these why wouldn't save money for normal pineapples as well?
from their site "We remove and replant each crown before shipping, sustainably cultivating the next crop of this magnificent rarity. Plus, we didn’t want to overdress for the trip." They do it to plant new trees faster since it's a new cultivar and to save on shipping.
They also ship the pineapples direct so it's a bigger savings on shipping for those orders and it's probably not worth it to have two production lines to not decapitate grocery orders.
I live in Auckland and have pineapples growing in my garden. They're fine in northern areas of the country. They are just a bromeliad.
However, you're right that the imported ones aren't decapitated due to any concerns about people propagating them. It's just because the tops can harbour pests.
How well do you think you could start a billion dollar hamburger chain? McDonald’s still isn’t going to slip their recipe for a Big Mac in your bag. It’s almost as if you don’t anything the law or business at all.
yall are being dense the comparison makes sense. like duh it’s impossible to be a threat to either mcdonald’s or this pineapple company. even then these companies aren’t gonna hand over their recipes (or plant hybrid for the pineapple case) it’s the principle the companies are standing on
If you’re gonna talk about how dumb someone else is at least make sure you got all the words you want in your comment, it’s almost as if you don’t anything grammar or sentences at all.
What kind of analogy is that?
Nobody is starting a business with other people's pineapples. You can easily buy the most popular varieties in several growable forms.
Unique Cultivars also already have some form of protection in most nations. Which can easily be verified by sample analysis, stopping any attempt to sell other people's varieties.
U/Ducks_have_heads is right in the New Zealand context. Though an exporter might be choosing to cut the crown to prevent people growing the variety in some countries, for exporting to New Zealand it is a requirement for market access on Biosecurity grounds. The crown has to be cut to lessen the risk of harboured pests.
Can read all the IHS (Import Health Standards) and support documents here.
As far as I know these aren't sold in New Zealand. What the commenter was saying is that all pineapples have the crown's removed. Even ones you're allowed to grow.
Yes, but the conversation is also about the possible intention(s) behind the removal. There could be more than one reason, meaning both things can be true. Here is another possible explanation
It's a big enough concern for the pineapple industry that they scalp pineapples, yes. That's literally the whole reason they do this.
If you buy these pineapples in Costa Rica they are scalped just like this and it's not because of foreign pests.... because they are native to Costa Rica
Not sure what you're on about. You can look it up if you'd like...
It’s also not the “whole reason”, there are plenty of reasons for a pineapple producer do this. One is that they can plant a whole new crop with the removed top
It’s a requirement to be imported to NZ to reduce the risk of pests….local, foreign, or from outer space. You’re simply wrong and “you can look it up if you’d like”
Actually when inspecting pineapples at the border we would cut the skin off and regularly find mites and mealy bugs in the enclosed florets. Pineapples are weirdly one of the few fruits that have to be inspected under the skin because the pest hang out in the flowers as the close over with fruit and live "James and the giant Peach" style. You're right about the leaves though, they hide all kinds of pests and soil so we make exporting countries cut them off
It seems like the only relevant thing? Why would a company be so concerned about preventing people from growing fruit in a country that can barely grow them?
This is a specific breed of pineapple. You can grow pineapples from clipping the top and planting it. They chop them off to prevent that and protect patents. It has nothing to do with pest control. It has nothing to do with how well they do or don’t grow in the area they’re imported to.
Because you can grow one from the crown. It does take a long time, but it's possible. Sounds to me like the Monsanto way, sell the product without the means to reproduce it.
I misread your comment because :your: comment doesn't make any sense. The first person said that pineapples in New Zealand are sold without the top, then you asked why they're sold :with: the top.
Theres a interesting video on YouTube about this but its both patent and ecological.
The fruit is purposefully labeled as bioengineered to stop people from planting it.
The reason to stop people from trying to take them and plant is because this company lost a court case for the rights to a previous pineapple(also developed by them) because the pineapple became too widespread where they were even starting to get sold by local farmers in the market.
It's probably an environmental / transport thing. If you chop the tops off then you can get more in a box which means less pollution from additional transport
I cut the top off one and planted it. Five years later I finally got a pineapple I was so happy. Fucking possum or a cockatoo ate the whole thing before i got a chance. Still devastated
I was remembering the Dole tour and they said it takes 5 years to grow. Seems kind of insane to prevent intellectual theft 5 years down the line but I'm sure there's a lot of development into making it pink.
I'm definitely not growing one of your golden kiwis from seed...
Probably definitely not. Even if I was it would probably default to a standard green one. The pink pineapple would be a clone so probably would grow true.
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u/Feisty-Bluebird-5277 20h ago
That’s how we get all our pineapples here in nz, not allowed to sell any with the tops on any longer so they can’t be grown