Tasting the $19 strawberry. Is it worth the hype?

Jamie Feldmar

Love it or hate it, Erewhon has a knack for going viral. After all, the shrine to wellness-related groceries is arguably best known for its celebrity-backed smoothies, such as the new $21 (R385) “Deeper Wellness” concoction, which includes such ingredients as sun chlorella, sea moss, tocos, lion’s mane, maca, chocho plant protein and astragalus (along with the more pedestrian almond milk and vanilla).

Shoppers at Erewhon are used to paying a premium for items with all manner of purported health benefits; it’s just a part of the wellness culture in Los Angeles. But its latest online sensation revolves around an ingredient even mainstream shoppers can recognize: a single strawberry.

Well, not just any strawberry. This being Erewhon, the strawberry is imported from luxury Japanese supplier Elly Amai, sold in an individually packaged plastic container, for $19 (R350) a pop. Yes, that’s $19 for a single strawberry, nestled gently atop a foam cushion, to protect its delicate skin from being manhandled by hordes of content creators eager to get their hands on the latest trend.

And, this being Erewhon, the single strawberry is selling out in LA, spurred on by a viral video posted by Alyssa Antoci (who is related to the family that owns the grocery store), in which she raves about the fruit as “the best strawberry I’ve ever had in my life.” Although she neglects to specify what it actually tastes like.

So, with an equal mix of anticipation and skepticism, I did what any trend-abiding Angeleno must: I went to get one.

Walking into the Pasadena Erewhon, I spotted the Elly Amai display immediately, occupying a prime spot in the stand-alone refrigerator otherwise filled with the store’s signature juices. There were about two dozen strawberries on an eye level shelf, with a wooden placard from Elly Amai advertising the “explosion of flavour” that “elevates the ordinary strawberry to extraordinary heights.”

An employee at the register told me that the berries had been selling out since they debuted about two weeks ago. Only three stores in the LA area - Pasadena, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills - are receiving shipments at the moment, and they’re each allotted one case a day. He shook his head solemnly when I asked if they knew when the next order would arrive.

Although it’s tempting to eye-roll at Erewhon’s merchandising, there’s a long-standing luxury fruit tradition in Japan, Korea and other parts of Asia, where perfectly shaped Yubari melons and Ruby Roman grapes fetch thousands of dollars at auction. Less expensive - but still triple-digit - versions of similar fruits are meticulously wrapped at the upmarket department stores that sell them like watches or jewelry and are often given as gifts.

These fruits are often grown by specialty farmers who prioritize certain aesthetic, aromatic and/or flavour traits. Indeed, representatives from Kyoto-based Elly Amai say their berries, a variety known as Tochiaika, are grown organically at a farm called Anhay in Tochigi (a prefecture just north of Tokyo that is known as “the Strawberry Kingdom”). According to the Tochigi Agricultural Product Marketing Association, this is a relatively new variety in a fruit-rich region, debuting in 2020 after years of development at the local Strawberry Research Institute.

The Tochiaika strawberries, in season from December to May, are bred with an emphasis on sweetness, clocking in at an average of 16 to 19 on the Brix meter (which measures sugar content), whereas many berries in the US market are closer to 7 to 9. They’re also very fragile - “You should only touch them with bare hands if you plan on eating them within 3-4 hours,” the instructions warn. That, and: “It’s best to let them breathe at room temp for 15-30 minutes to bring out the aroma and sweetness.”

Representatives from Erewhon say that the price was set by the vendor, “reflecting the exceptional quality and the logistics involved in bringing them to our stores.”

Other fancy berries have been infiltrating the American market in recent years, too: Remember Oishii’s Omakase strawberries, grown in New Jersey and sold for a comparatively paltry $5 to $6 each, developed by a vertical farm consultant who got his start in Japan? (We tried them a few years ago and found them just okay.)

Or consider Wish Farms’ ghostly pale “Pink-A-Boo” pineberries, available in Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Whole Foods across the country (among others), billed as “similar to the classic strawberry flavor you know and love but with refreshing essences of pineapple.”

Even Driscoll’s - one of the most widely available brands in the berry business, produced by a network of some 900-plus growers around the world - has gotten in on the specialty strawberry game, launching a line of “Tropical Bliss” strawberries in 2022, which they poetically describe as akin to “a refreshing tropical punch on a nice hot day,” with flavors of pineapple, passionfruit, guava and mango.

Still, this Angeleno can’t help but wonder: Why are we trying to make perfectly good strawberries taste like something else? And are any of these fancy berries better than the locally grown stuff? Organic family farmer Harry’s Berries in Oxnard, California (which Erewhon also carries, for the relative bargain of $24 for a 450g box) has a cult following for its wildly aromatic, perfectly sweet-tart berries. They bear a much lower carbon footprint and less wasteful packaging, in addition to a gentler price tag (all things considered), than the Elly Amai specimens.

Back home, having waited the requisite 30 minutes, it was time to taste-test my $19 strawberry. I felt nearly guilty for breaking the plastic seal, though the pleasure receptors in my brain immediately flooded with the sweet aroma of ripe fruit. I weighed the berry (45 grams) and cut it in half, revealing its signature heart shape, and took a tentative first bite. It was, as the marketing copy and my new friends at Erewhon had promised, very sweet, devoid entirely of the tartness you might find in more typical clamshell fruit (which this writer happens to like). Not juicy, per se, but highly concentrated, like a strawberry on steroids.

Was it good? Of course it was good. Was it “worth it”? Not by my calculations.

I simply can’t get over the environmental impact and the sensational marketing, especially when the berry’s flavour is so one-note. That’s my subjective analysis, though by the time you read this, the influencers may have already moved on to the latest trend. One thing’s for sure: Whatever shape the next $19 strawberry takes, Erewhon will be there, ready to capitalize on a distinctly viral version of the California dream.