Would you pay $19 for a strawberry?

The rise of luxury fruit

This article has been kindly reproduced with permission from The Economist and was published on 3 July 2025.

Six large strawberries are neatly wrapped in what looks like a fancy chocolate box. The Omakase berries—a Japanese variety, grown by a company called Oishii in New Jersey—are softer and sweeter than those found in most supermarkets. You would hope so: they cost around $14 a box, roughly three times the price of a punnet at Walmart.

Fruit has a luxurious history. Pineapples were prized by British aristocrats. Japan is one of several Asian countries where premium fruits are bought as gifts; in 2016 a bunch of Ruby Roman grapes was sold at an auction for $11,000—around $350 each.

Now foodies and social media are turning America into a growing market for luxury fruit. Last year Fresh Del Monte, an American food company, began selling a $395 Costa Rican pineapple at home, after selling out in China.

It is Japanese fruit, however, that has caused the biggest sensation. Erewhon, a posh grocery chain in Los Angeles, recently went viral for importing and selling individually wrapped Japanese strawberries for $19. Japanese Crown melons, grown in limited quantities, can sell for hundreds of dollars.

Specialised businesses are sprouting up to meet the moment. Ikigai Fruits, a Tokyo-based exporter that launched in 2023, sells everything from boxes of persimmons for $128 to $780 sets of strawberries. The company flies produce across from Japan. But lately it has had to contend with tariffs and an increasingly unpredictable growing climate.

Oishii dodges these challenges by relying on vertical farming, which allows it to grow its berries in America by tightly controlling the climate. Sleek branding and influencer marketing have made its strawberries a social-media hit. “Anyone can tell that it’s a different product”, reckons Hiroki Koga, Oishii’s boss. The company secured $150m in its most recent funding round in November.

Oishii recently launched a new strawberry, marketed as its most affordable yet ($8 a box). It has branched out into tomatoes, too; a packet of 11 or so costs $10. Mr Hiroki recommends bringing three boxes to a party in lieu of a bottle of wine. “I’m sure you’ll be able to impress the host much more.”