White Strawberry Plants Are Real—and the Fruit Tastes Like Pineapple
Updated: Dec. 22, 2022
Have you seen a white strawberry before?
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While we love our regular, everyday produce, we’re always on the lookout for exotic fruits that make our tastebuds tingle. We discovered that a black apple isn’t a poisonous fruit, and bananas don’t just come in yellow and green—you can find red bananas in the market, too!
Now that it’s strawberry season, we’re all looking for perfect red, ripe strawberries with no patches of white. But a white strawberry might not always be an unripe berry—here’s why.
What Is a White Strawberry?
It’s a special type of strawberry plant. The fruit has white skin with red seeds, and is usually a bit bigger than its red-colored counterpart. Despite the pale color, white strawberries are bred to be sweeter and softer than conventional strawberries. While about 50 varieties of these white strawberries are grown, the most well-known one is the White Jewel variety developed by Yasuhito Teshima at his farm in Japan.
The strawberry is exposed to very little sunlight while growing, reducing levels of anthocyanin, which gives strawberries their distinct color. Growing these white berries takes a lot of time and effort, and they usually have a low yield, which leads to their sky-high price. One berry can go for $10—yep, just the one berry, which means that a whole box can cost upwards of $40. Their unique taste, however—a combination of pineapple and candy-like sweetness—makes them very popular in the luxury fruit market.
If you were hoping to splurge on a box, these strawberries aren’t often found in the United States—but luckily, they’re available right now!
Where to Buy White Strawberries
Aldi is selling these hard-to-find white strawberries right now, and as you’d expect, at an amazing price. You can a 10 oz. box for just $4.49, making this the steal deal of spring for sure! However, these aren’t the famed white Jewel variety—they’re pineberries, a more affordable variety that has the same pineapple-like flavor.
If you’re too late to grab a box from Aldi, you can still find white strawberry plants on Etsy, like this pineberry plant. You can also buy seeds for the White Asuka Ruby variety.
If you prefer to find berries while traveling, we’ve rounded up the most delicious regional berries.
Originally Published: March 31, 2022
