A friend returning from a trip to Japan told me about his experience with the fruit equivalent of Wagyu beef: the Yubari melon, grown on Hokkaido Those cantaloupes are sold for close to $100 each, and their flavor, according to my friend, is “life-changing.” There are reports of some Yubari costing even more: in 2019 someone paid 5 million Yen (almost $50,000) for a pair of them.
The San Francisco Bay area, with its high disposable income and its food obsession, seems like a natural place to sell more Yubari, so why isn’t this happening? They could be grown in a place that has a similar climate to Hokkaido, like Eastern Washington state. After all, it’s now possible to get American-grown Wagyu so why not also American-grown Yubari?
Nehaveigur 