This page provides useful information and practical tips on handling and storing berries.

Berry Handling / Storage

• Unless you intend to use strawberries immediately, it is best to keep their green “cap”, with a bit of stem, attached.
• It is best to delay washing berries until you are ready to use them as, they will prematurely mold if stored wet.
• Never allow berries to remain in a hot car for even a short amount of time. Take them home & refrigerate immediately.
• Preservative free berries are fragile and must be consumed, frozen, or processed within a couple of days of harvest.

Why do fresh picked berries, directly from Olde Silo Farm taste better than store bought berries?

• They are fresh picked, picked at the peak of ripeness, and contain no preservatives.
• For peak flavor, berries must be allowed to ripen on the plant before harvest as their flavor profile stops development at the time of picking.
• If picked before completely ripe, the berries will continue to “color-up” but their flavor development stopped at the time of harvest.
• How much time from harvest to consumer?
• You-Pick = IMMEDIATE
• Pre-Order = most orders, 2 - 12 hours but up to 24 hours for very large orders

Now consider berries, available at your local store.

• The first concern, from grower, all along the distribution chain, is that the berries look good on the store shelves, which can be several days in the future.
• The harvesting, packaging, & shipping will take time so, a food grade preservative will be necessary to delay spoilage. You never really know many total days there were from harvest to the retail store.
• Once the berries reach the retailer, they must go through the “receiving process” and then into storage and/or onto the sale shelf. The buyer is again unaware as to how many days are in this part of the cycle.
• Next the buyer will purchase the berries and take them home, expecting that they will still be fresh for several days. It may be a bit disconcerting to realize just how many total days have passed since the berries were harvested!!!

Since the berries from Olde Silo Farm have no preservatives, their storage requirements are very important. Unlike the store bought berries, they will remain “fresh” for a shorter time. Consider that “store berries” have been picked, packaged, shipped, received at the final store destination, displayed for sale, purchased, and are now in your shopping cart and still look pretty good. But, what happened to the flavor and do you really want to eat pesticides and preservatives?