Why is fruit so bad in Spain

Why the heck can't you get decent fruit in Spain, they grow the stuff here but it seems they export all the good stuff leaving only the crap behind. Again today, bought a watermelon, took two bites and I had to throw it out. The other day bought two watermelons, first one was great second I had to throw out.

And it's not just watermelons it's just about everything you buy. For example the best tomatoes are imported from Holland.

crazy.

You're spot on Rob.  The fruit we get around here seems really poor quality sometimes..and much of it is grown locally.  Doesn't make sense really.

I find the fruit in our local SuperSol particularly poor.

Justin 

the best fruit I get is from a Market where I used to live, place is super popular so you have to get there early. I don't go as often as I'd like as it is pricey.

Carrefour sometimes cuts watermelons in half so then you can see if it's good.

Around us trucks, like those supplying Tesco, are in the fields packing veg and fruit and at this time of year and the locals can collect the leftovers. We had lovely melons last year. 

Apart from that the markets are good but we are not great at bartering. The supermarkets are very disappointing. We get much nicer Spanish oranges in Scotland than we can buy in Murcia!   

 I was so suprised by this thread........!

Maybe because i live in the Vega Baja or Orchard of Europe as it's also called, we get spoilt with the quality of our fruit.....

The oranges are to die for !!! and all the local markets sell the most freshest produce i have ever tasted anywhere...

I took it as red that all of Spain was like this ...apparently not....

I too was surprised to see this thread, as the fruit and vegetables here are very good.  Mind you, we have to look hard for decent potatoes!  We buy our fruit and veg at the local market, where most of it has the price marked, and we find that the total is rounded down so we have never considered having to barter.  Does anybody else?  The flavour of peaches and nectarines has been superb, as they are grown locally.  We were also offered two bags of fruit in a local bar; 5kg of oranges and 5 kg of lemons for 3 euros!

Sue

Up here in La Vera the fruit is fabulous, as is all the food. We have just come to the end of the cherry season here, they are grown in the Jerte Valley next door to us and are so good, at one euro a kg. The apricots were also wonderful a couple of months back. We still get a lot of locally grown  "Paraguay" variety peaches, flat like a squashed peach, never come across them before, very juicy. That said, we grow most of our own fruit and veg.

The Spanish in our village don't eat oranges between mid May & October, they say they don't taste good !!

When we were in Alicante City last year in Dec we bought some clementines & they were so sweet that I bought a lot more. The apples were great too.

perhaps it's that I live in Marid or the fruit that is bought by the chains isn't very good but I've had terrible luck in getting decent fruit. Actually I should qualify that, some of it is good, strawberries and raspberrys for example are usually good, apples are usually ok. It just seems to be tomatoes and watermelons.

Like I said the best places are usually local farmers markets

I love the oranges where we are you can smell they are so fresh, we are lucky we often get given carrier bags full for free they will not take money for them. 

I do find melons expensive in Spain though. 

We also get a guy knocking on the door with fresh mackeral a carrier bag full for 3 euros, I did have a bag just the once, but I am not very good at filleting fish,  although a few people offered to do it for me.

The only thing I do have a gripe with is grapes, cannot seem to find ones without the pips in.

Pat   

perhaps I should clarify Why is the fruit YOU BUY  IN SUPERMARKETS so bad.

As I mentioned it is really really diffiucult to find decen fruit in Spanish supermarkets, about half the watermelons I buy have to be thrown out. Don't get me started on bananas maybe it's Spanish thing but they go from green with black spots to spoiled without stopping at yellow. I just when I can go back to Germany (Wife is often there for work) and you can get decent furit. Tomatoes are bad everywhere as they are picked green. Kiwi goes from rock hard to spoiled without stopping at ripe. Of course local grown stuff grown sold at a market is always going to be better.

you get the point, fruit in Spanish supermarkets is crap

Edit: I should mention that organges bought in season from my local market are fantastic, but the ones from Carrefour are so so

Perhaps it's because the supermarkets import the fruit and veg.  I'm sure I saw signs on the labels in Mercadonna where the items were from and I don't think all of it's from Spain.

Same as Tesco does, I was horrified when shopping there after a trip to Spain to find most of the veg I was buying was from Spain.  Now if I have room in the case I take it back with me.  The difference in prices are amazing!!!!

I'm amazed anyone (in their right mind) would buy fruit & veg from a supermarket when the locals sell superb fruit & veg (& cut flowers& cooked chickens etc) on the markets. Around where we have our place, which is near Pat & Roy & Georgia too, we have markets most days. We buy from these.

Potatoes are not too great, as Pat says, but we buy from Rojales market on a Thursday & buy the creamy looking potatoes 50c/kg & they are gorgeous. They taste like they've been covered in butter.

just stopped by the market today, opps forgot it's August, only 2 vendors instead of the usual 20, still managed to get some nice apples from New Zealand!!!! Besides time, (it's a bit out of the way) the main reason I don't shop there is generally the prices are higher.

Wow, that's unusual, markets being dearer than supermarkets but then you do live in Madrid so perhaps that explains it.

I also buy my fruit and veg in the local markets, my favourite is the Monday one at San Pedro.  Very handy expecially as I normally fly over on a Sunday.  I'd take a guess at 80 fruit and veg stalls there, about the same as Torrevieja weekly market.

I prefer markets as I can normally buy just what I need rather than the bagged/packaged portions in supermarkets.  Also you can pick over the items and get the best quality.  The last time I was over Mercadonna were selling some fruit and pepinos by weight but not potatoes. 

Talking of potatoes, I normally buy the small white ones, similar to new potatoes but when boiled the centre's go yellow instead of white.  They taste ok but look strange, I did find some red skinned ones and they were ok white inside after boiling. 

Hi Z, are you ok ? Looking forward to your next trip over, like us ?

Let me know how to find the San Pedro one please. Oh, & let's arrange a meet up too whilst we're all over as we spoke about that a while ago. Email me.

Fruit is great. Just get into your local fruit shop and get talking to the people who own it. They will tell you what is best and it is much much cheaper than the supermarkets. Misshapen and stuff but who cares. Watermelons at 1 Euros a piece which are heaven here in Valencia. Video of fruit and Spain attached!

Watermelons aren't quite that cheap up here! But over the last few days I've tried something different, buying it from the local store, market vender rather than from the local supermarket and while not as cheap as Carrefour the quality is way way better! So guess who's going to be getting my business!

UPDATE: I've started buying my fruits and veggies from the local markets and mercents and there is a big quality difference. I'm really surprised. Depending on the season you do pay slightly higher prices but the quality is so much better that it's worth it.