Watermelons, those big, slurpy symbol of summer, are getting downsized.
New varieties smaller than honeydews have started appearing in grocery stores. They’re often sold in bins labeled “personal” watermelons, as if they were hand-held digital devices.
The melons are the fruit of a marriage of science and marketing that began with consumer surveys conducted by Syngenta and Seminis, two of the world’s largest seed companies. Their research showed that people love watermelon but hate its fridge-hogging size. Singles, couples and smaller families apparently wanted a watermelon version of the personal pan pizza.
“You buy this 20-pound honker of a melon, and what are you supposed to do with the thing once you’ve cut it and can’t eat it all? It’s like buying a side of beef when you want a steak,” says Kevin Migdal, president of Dulcinea Farms, a Syngenta joint venture in California.
The mini-melons weigh 3 to 7 pounds and look more like green cantaloupes than those familiar picnic blimps. They’re a third to a fourth of the size of their bigger kin and up to 50 percent sweeter. They’re seedless and have a thinner rind, so there’s less to throw out.
What’s not to like?
Price. Mini-melons cost two to three times more by weight.
So far, consumers are paying for the cuteness and convenience.
“Demand has definitely exceeded supply,” says Gary Koppenjan, spokesman for Seminis Vegetable Seeds in Oxnard, Calif., the company that developed Bambinos.
Archrival Syngenta’s entry, the PureHeart, is more than keeping up.
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“We’re selling everything we can grow,” says Migdal of Dulcinea Farms. “We think miniature melons could make up a quarter of the market in a few years.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])