The Watsonville, CA-based Driscoll’s, Inc. BB #:116044 line of premium, high-flavor berries being sold under the “Sweetest Batch” label gained some national attention.
The Wall Street Journal profiled the company and its breeding process to come up with these luxury strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, which ran in the July 6 print edition.
CEO Soren Bjorn told the business newspaper that for decades, berry companies avoided commercial production of the sweetest berries because they couldn’t travel or they had low yields or weak coloring, among other reasons.
The Sweetest Batch program got an accident start when one of Driscoll’s partners in Australia found a blueberry that was sweet, crunchy, and too good to waste.
“It tasted amazing,” Bjorn told WSJ. “But it was significantly less productive than less amazing blueberries. And it would never see the light of day unless we could make it really premium from a price standpoint.”
He said Driscoll’s found a sweet spot for the premium berries with acceptable yield and shelf life and amazing flavor. And then the company applied it to the whole berry program.
The Sweetest Batch strawberries typically see a price point around $6.99 for 10-12 berries, for example.
In addition to Bjorn, the WSJ story also quotes a Whole Foods Market buyer, Jonna Parker of Circana, and Henry Yeung, Kyle Rak, and Frances Dillard of Driscoll’s.
