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Pineapple is a plant of the humid tropics. Nubaria is a plain of pale sand with two hundred millimetres of rain a year. When one of our growers told us in 2021 that he was planting MD2 there, our first reaction was to ask if he was well.

How it works

The plant needs water and warmth; it does not particularly need humidity. Nubaria has warmth in abundance, and Nile water arrives by canal. Drip irrigation puts precisely what each plant needs at its roots, and the dry air means almost no fungal disease — one of the biggest problems in traditional pineapple regions. Fruit takes about eighteen months from planting to first harvest.

What the fruit is like

MD2 grown in dry heat comes out slightly smaller than Costa Rican fruit, with higher Brix (14 to 16) and a more concentrated aroma. The flesh is a deep gold. It is, frankly, better for freezing than the imported fruit we used to buy: less water, more flavour per gram.

The desert is not the enemy of fruit. Careless water is.

Why we bother

Until 2023 all of our pineapple chunks were cut from imported fruit — flown or shipped in, ripened in transit, already tired when it arrived. Local fruit reaches the plant the day it is picked. The chunks are firmer, the colour is brighter, and the carbon footprint of the product roughly halves.

• Current contracted area: 120 hectares.
• Harvest: May to September, with a second flush in winter.
• Formats: chunks 20 mm, tidbits, rings on request.

We are still a small pineapple supplier, and we say so. But the fruit from Nubaria is now the best in our range, and we expect the area to double by 2027.