Pink pineapples? You can now buy the colorful fruit, but it’ll cost you
No, that’s not a holiday ham. It’s a pineapple and yes, it’s pink.
Del Monte’s Pinkglow pineapple has been in development since 2005 and is now available for purchase nationwide, the company announced Monday.
The rose-hued fruit, dubbed the “Jewel of the Jungle,” is sweeter and juicer in taste than its traditional yellow counterpart and is bursting with “notes of candy pineapple aromatics,” according to the Pinkglow website. Each comes without a crown, for replanting and cultivating purposes, and is grown on a select farm in Costa Rica.
Just one can take up to two years to produce.
“The Pinkglow pineapple is a product we are incredibly proud of — not only for its beautiful color and delicious taste, but also because of the care that went into growing and releasing it, as well as the sustainable method we have enacted to produce these new pink pineapples,” Pablo Rivero, marketing vice president for Fresh Del Monte, North America, said in a statement.
The tropical fruit is only available online and costs $49 a pop. Each arrives “elegantly” packaged and will be sent direct to consumers across the U.S., according to a news release.
So how exactly do the pineapples get their pink “glow?” The short answer is genetic engineering.
Pineapples contain lycopene, a naturally occurring pigment that makes tomatoes red and watermelons pink. To keep its fruit pretty in pink, Del Monte engineered the pineapples to produce lower levels of the existing enzymes that “convert the pink pigment lycopene to the yellow pigment beta carotene,” per the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA approved the “extra sweet pink flesh pineapple” in 2016, marking them safe for human consumption, Food & Wine reported.
The pink pineapples’ market debut was met with a myriad of reactions online, with some scoffing at the pricey tropical fruit.
“I can’t wait!! I’m dying to get my hands on one,” a customer commented on Pinkglow’s Instagram page.
“$50 for a pineapple?,” wrote another. “Do people forget we are in the middle of a pandemic? Damn, I guess I’ll be stuck dying my pineapple pink for the foreseeable future.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Pink pineapples? You can now buy the colorful fruit, but it’ll cost you."