Why Pitaya (Mexican Dragon Fruit) Is So Expensive | So Expensive Food | Business Insider

braving 30-foot High cacti sharp spines and sweltering heat is the only way to reach this incredibly sweet and juicy fruit the pitaya is a type of dragon fruit once it is picked time is of the essence after 24 hours the fruit begins to lose its flavor and texture this makes getting Pattaya to customers incredibly difficult and pushes the price higher depending on where you live in Guadalajara Mexico a batch of 4 000 pattayas can sell for over seven thousand four hundred dollars getting your hands on some in the US can cost up to twenty two dollars for a bucket of five fruits so what makes this fruit worth the painstaking task and why is it so expensive pitayas grow on cacti just like Prickly Pear and dragon fruit they are often confused with dragon fruit because of the similarity of their names vitaya and Pitta hire but unlike dragon fruit or prickly pears which grow all over the world the tire can only be found in Mexico and some parts of the US in the Mexican state of Jalisco these spiky fruits become a major driver of the local economy when they're in season is Trinidad has been working with pattayas for 15 years he started as a pickup and now runs a wholesale and reads retail businesses he usually harvests the fruits during the night time and into the early hours of the morning pitayas grow on a type of cactus called the Organ Pipe Cactus these cacti can grow up to 30 feet tall to grab a pitaya at the top of the plant Trinidad uses a long Reed fitted with spikes that's Chiquita Blanca is [Music] foreign tires are available for a very short window the season usually starts around mid-april and lasts 60 to 70 days with the first summer rains dictating the end of the season unlike dragon fruit or prickly pears pattayas grow in much smaller numbers in general an Organ Pipe Cactus can give one fruit per day or 60 potatoes for the whole season to start bearing fruit sparingly the cactus needs at least eight years to reach full maturity it needs 15. in comparison at full maturity a dragon fruit Cactus can give three waves of fruit per season of 100 fruits each once the fruit is off the cactus that's when the race begins pattayas are made up of 85 percent water and are very perishable they can only last 24 hours before losing texture and flavor when Trinidad is done picking he has to process the fruit straight away if he wants it to arrive fresh to his customers before they can be sold workers have to quickly remove the dozens of spines by hand while the spines are hard the fruit is very fragile so when cleaning one has to be careful not to peel off too much skin this would make the fruit more tender and it would spoil faster [Music] La fruta at the peak of the Season Manuel can clean three thousand to four thousand bit tires a day with this many pattayas a good batch could be worth anywhere from two thousand to two thousand seven hundred dollars [Music] pattaya's appraised for their sweetness they are also rich in vitamin C fiber potassium iron and calcium and their seeds are rich in Omega-3 guitars come in four colors white red purple and yellow despite being the same type of cactus each plant will give a different color Pattaya with a different degree of sweetness is [Music] philando muchas because they spoil so quickly there are a few ways that the tires get distributed each way determining the price Manuel sells them at a stand that he is operated with his wife for the last seven years [Music] personas cincuenta is [Music] Market stands like Manuel's are usually run by local families but pattayas are not just sold at local markets you can find Trinidad on the Kalima Guadalajara Highway at the 49 kilometer Mark where he sells his pattayas from a roadside stand foreign cheapest when they're sold locally in Mexico the final price varies on the size of the fruit but also on location a batch of 4 000 high quality pattayas that could be worth up to two thousand seven hundred dollars in a local market could fetch over seven thousand four hundred dollars for the extra hassle it took to rush them to the city Andres runs a Pattaya delivery company with his brother Juan Pablo they buy pattayas from wholesalers like Trinidad and Manuel and distribute them to customers in Guadalajara the capital of Jalisco and the only place apart from small towns where pitayas are readily available [Music] getting pattaya's out of town and into the city is a challenge the pattayas have been off the tree for a few hours now and there's a high Chance some of them will not make it to their destination is [Music] [Music] this is why pattayas are extremely rare to find outside of Mexico only a handful of companies will take the risk to ship the fruits abroad either by driving hours to cross the U.S border or shipping them first class these are usually pre-orders that reach the customer directly rather than transporting the pattayas to another Market store the final price will be double what a customer in a kalisco would pay questions [Music] impressions but it's the unpredictability of the Season that plays the biggest role foreign in the last few years pitayas have been even sweeter for locals the demand is growing companies like Andres and Juan Pablo's are spreading the word outside of town and the pitaya market is getting bigger the weather has also been ideal for Pattaya in recent years the rains have arrived a bit later than usual and brought less precipitation lengthening the growing season but this is not necessarily good news in the long term while cacti thrive in deserts and the high temperatures allow their fruit to grow they are not immune to extreme heat a 2022 study found that 31 of the world's Cactus species are currently threatened with extinction by 2050 that number could increase to 90 percent as a result of the climate becoming hotter and drier this pressure could make the Pattaya an even more fleeting fruit even now in full bloom one season is not enough for locals like Trinidad to support themselves year round is [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: Business Insider

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Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, So Expensive, Expensive, Money, Fruit, Harvest, Farming, Farm, Pritaya, Dragon Fruit, Farmer, Prickly Pear, Mexico, Mexican, Culture, Mexican Culture, Heritage, Business, Dining, Food, Agriculture

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Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2022