Cornwall is the most surprising location to have produced the most costly pineapple ever.
The luscious fruit, as per a report by The Mirror costs a whopping £1,000 per slice and was produced over years by a 15-person team of tropical fruit farmers. Cornwall has a microclimate, but because it takes so much work to grow pineapples, it is not frequently done.
Growers from The Lost Gardens of Heligan plucked the prickly customer this week, and they anticipate that it will fetch a stunning $10,000 at auction.
Interestingly, horse faeces is used to keep the pineapple plants warm in wooden pits, where they spend two years growing but only yield one of the fruits.
The British acquired a liking for the treat in the 17th century and discovered a way to deceive the pineapple into believing it was warmer so they could grow the tropical treat in the freezing environment of the UK.
The pineapple has cost them £1,000 to grow after accounting for the labour hours spent caring for it, manure transportation expenses, and maintenance.
They develop in specially constructed pits that are heated by a supply of fresh manure that is decomposing and that enters the mechanism through wall vents.
Despite the high price, the team was given a little slice of the fruit as compensation for their efforts.
It was a historic occasion for the staff, who were each served a small piece of lusciously succulent and delightfully tropical fruit, just like you would have in the tropics, according to Dina, a member of the Productive Garden Team at the Lost Gardens of Heligan.
It is almost heartbreaking to crop the fruit after all these years of labour, but we remove the crown and transplant it so the pineapple can continue to bear fruit.
Due to the complexity of their business, Dina and her staff assert that their pineapples are the “best-tasting outside of the tropics.”
In the past, only the richest and most influential Brits would receive a pineapple as a prestige symbol.
They are believed to have been introduced to Britain for the first time in 1819. “Pineapples are a very labour-intensive fruit to grow,” a spokesperson was quoted as saying by Mirror.
“In auction to the right buyer we believe a price around £10,000 may be imaginable, after all… where else can you buy a pineapple with such a story.”
