Harvesting Del Monte Gold pineapples on a plantation near Buenos Aires, Costa Rica. Del Monte developed this pineapple variety 25 years ago, and it has become the dominant commercial variety worldwide, tripling U.S. pineapple consumption over the past twenty years, due to it’s sweet, less acidic flavor. Del Monte has 6,000 sq km of of pineapple, banana, and melon acreage in Costa Rica, and keeps 26% of it in a wild or re-wilded state, providing biological corridors for wildlife and buffer zone for watersheds.
DMG pineapples have a two year lifespan, yielding their first fruit after 10 months, and a second slightly larger fruit 14 months later. The fruit are picked by a hand (harvesters average $36-$40/day for a 10 hour shift), then washed, waxed, and treated with some fungicide and insecticide before being chilled to 8°C for shipment by containerized boat to markets in N. America, Europe, and the Middle East.
- Filename
- STNMTZ_20210113_4760.tif
- Copyright
- George Steinmetz
- Image Size
- 6008x4000 / 68.8MB
- www.georgesteinmetz.com
- Contained in galleries
- Feed the Planet
