The Pineberry is a strawberry cultivar owned by breeder Hans de Jongh and commercialized by VitalBerry BV in Made, The Netherlands, and publicized in Germany in April, 2009, as Ananaserdbeere, or pineapple strawberry.
Pineberries are actually the oldest strawberry variety and were brought from Chile to France in the 1700’s. Originally strawberries were white in south America and Red in north America (known as scarlets). Crossings between the Chilean white Pineberry and the north American scarlets, produced Fragaria ananassa, which is the base material for all the common strawberry varieties we have today.
The Pineberry was saved from extinction when we found the original source material in France and decided to grow it on a commercial basis. As a result of many selections over time, the original parent material had been diluted and was very weak, yielding only one or two berries per plant. We worked on the “forgotten” variety, by taking cuttings and growing hundreds of plants and carefully selecting the healthy ones (like you would in gardening, just on a larger scale). This was repeated again and again for 6 years until finally, we had healthy plants.
Pineberries are much smaller than the strawberries we are used to seeing today and what makes their appearance so distinct is their white flesh which is studded with red seeds. The aroma and flavour of pineberries never disappoints – the striking berries have a pineapple flavour.
Pineberries can be used in exactly the same way as other strawberry varieties, and they look fantastic on desserts such as pavlovas.