$200 melons? How Japan’s high-end fruit reveals our attitudes to agriculture | Adam Liaw

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$200 melons? How Japan’s high-end fruit reveals our attitudes to agriculture | Adam Liaw

Written by Adam Liaw

Australians are happy to pay for an expensive restaurant meal but when it comes to farmers’ labour the price is rarely right

In the basement food halls of Japan’s ritzy department stores you’ll find some of the world’s most expensive fruit. High-end specimens produced for the domestic gift market that can fetch eye-watering prices.

A single melon can sell for upwards of 15,000 yen (around A$200), a bunch of 15 or so grapes for 8,000 yen (around A$105), and premium white strawberries for 3,000 yen (A$40) each.

Related: Bronze fennel: a sidewalk ingredient that's been hiding in plain sight

$220 crown melon. I did not buy it.

Related: A record hot summer burned the first fruit of my apple tree – and left a bad taste in my mouth | Anthony N Castle

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