White-fleshed, red-seeded pineberries are now available to Australia consumers.
The United Nurseries co-operative has imported some of the first mother stock of the reverse-coloured strawberry from the Netherlands, with the import process taking four years to meet biosecurity and government requirements.
United Nurseries’ Philip Neilsen told ABC Rural that the group would initially be targeting the backyard grower market.
'The original thought pattern was just to target the public in respect to retail [nurseries],' Neilsen said. 'But what we saw over in Europe is that it is a commercial variety as well.
'You have to start somewhere, so we thought we'd start with retail and then work our way back down the other chain.'
The strawberry originated in South America and both smells and tastes like a pineapple, with United Nurseries to sell the fruit under its ‘Berry United’ range.
Launched at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, the Berry United range includes not only the unique-looking pineberry, but also the bubbleberry, with a mild bubblegum flavour, and the strasberry, a plump raspberry-tasting strawberry.
The plants will be available at major hardware stores and local nurseries across Australia in coming weeks.
This article was corrected to indicate United Nurseries imported the pineberry mother stock, not pineberry seeds as initially reported.
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