$19? We might be at peak strawberry
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$19? We might be at peak strawberry
In most parts of the country, strawberry growing won’t start until after the last frost. But in California, a single $19 strawberry has already captured the nation’s attention.
The dome-enshrined berry, sold at the notoriously expensive grocery chain Erewhon, went viral last month when social media influencer Alyssa Antoci (the niece of Erewhon’s owners) posted a TikTok video of herself eating “the best strawberry” she’s ever had. Others have described it as “juicy,” “sweet” and “floral.”
The internet has responded with plenty of outrage over the hefty price of the berries, which are imported from Kyoto, Japan, and distributed by luxury fruit seller Elly Amai. The company’s other products include a $95 Japanese musk melon, available online, and a $90 box of strawberries, which are sold out.
Erewhon and Elly Amai did not respond to Marketplace’s request for comment on how they set their prices.
It’s not the first time prices at the Southern California grocer have invoked the wrath of consumers. Think $30 bags of ice and $26 bottles of oxygenated water. Even its regular organic produce costs more than its competitors. A pound of organic strawberries costs $9.99 at Erewhon; Aldi, $5.75; Vons, $7.
But in a piece for Business Insider, one former employee defended Erewhon, saying many of its high prices are explained by the store’s “high standards for product and ingredient sourcing.”
Pricey products in general are a way for shoppers to display their social status, said Richard Sexton, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis.
“There are going to always be these kinds of very small, niche markets where people with means can afford to flaunt their consumption,” Sexton said.
Chiranjeev Kohli, a marketing professor at California State University, Fullerton, said he also thinks Erewhon charges very high prices because they signal exclusivity, and for the simple reason that people will pay them.
The business strategy appears to be successful. In 2023, the grocery chain made an estimated $171.4 million in profit across its 10 stores, according to Fast Company.
But while Erewhon’s elevated strawberries are costly, it’s important to understand their cultural context.
“In Japan, fruits are not just food. Fruits really have a lot of symbolic meaning and cultural meaning,” said Soyeon Shim, a scholar of consumer and financial behavior who’s studied the country’s fruit market. “High-end fruits are used as a gift. And gifts are a very important practice in Japan.”
A $19 strawberry isn’t unusual there, said Shim, who’s the dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Human Ecology. The high-quality fruit is grown in controlled greenhouses and requires a lot of hand labor, she said.
“I wouldn’t ever buy a $19 strawberry to get my daily intake for vitamin C. So it isn’t designed for everyday consumption,” Shim said.
Elly Amai isn’t the only luxury fruit supplier that ships to the United States. Online retailer Ikigai Fruits, established in 2023, also sells strawberries to American consumers.
A box of 20 “Bijinhime” or “beautiful princess,” strawberries costs $238, about $12 per berry.
Ikigai Fruits works with 20 farms, with each farm producing its own brand of strawberry, said Takeru Saito, a sales assistant at Ikigai Fruits.
In Japan, the number of farmers and the scale of farms are much smaller than in the U.S., Saito said, and their smaller yields help account for the higher price. Ikigai Fruits also ships its fruit on airplanes, which is more expensive than shipping them by sea, Saito said.
The number of Japan’s farmers are dwindling, Saito said, and many farmers are nearing retirement age with no one to succeed them. Exporting their produce to the U.S. gives them a wider revenue stream, he said.
More people in the U.S. have become interested in Japanese luxury fruits since Ikigai launched in 2023, Saito said. The company sells 250 boxes of strawberries per month, he said.
In the U.S., consumers over the past several decades have become more interested in where their food comes from and what varieties are available, leading growers to produce and develop new types for the more affluent sector of the population, said James Luby, professor emeritus of horticultural science at the University of Minnesota.
While everyday consumers probably aren’t shelling out hundreds for luxury fruit, Luby said they are paying 50% to 100% higher for premium fruits.
Take Honeycrisp apples, noted for their sweet-tart flavor and crunchy texture. They’re more challenging to grow and harvest, Luby said, and demand has outpaced supply for a couple of decades. They might cost about $2.99 a pound, compared to nonpremium apples, like Gala or Red Delicious, which are around $1.29 to $1.79 a pound.
There is a segment of our population that now has more disposable income to buy premium and luxury fruits, Luby said.
Trends inspire cheaper versions, encouraging companies from all market segments to make their own versions of a popular product. Even if many Americans can’t splurge on luxury fruit at the moment, Shim of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that Japanese strawberries could influence the mass market, driving down prices in the long run.
Oishii, a New Jersey-based fruit company that sells Japanese varieties of strawberries, has been able to drastically lower the price of its Omakase berries, described as having “a delicate sweetness” and “a deliciously creamy texture.” In 2019, a box of eight sold for $50, or $6.25 a strawberry. Now, a similarly sized tray costs $12 at some stores after Oishii scaled up its production.
More strawberry farmers in the U.S. may end up replicating the techniques used to grow Japanese strawberries, Shim said.
In the future, you may be able to find luxury fruit within your budget at a grocery store near you.
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