The Science of Sweetness: Why Fruit from Hale Groves is Better

What’s the most wonderful time of year? For us it’s winter citrus season! (Many people would answer with “holiday season,” but lucky us – citrus season starts just in time for the holidays!) Every season has something to offer when it comes to US-grown fruit, and we love them all. But citrus season is especially dear to us because citrus is where we got our start.

Premium Citrus Gifts

Hale Groves got our start back in 1947 with a modest roadside fruit stand located in Florida’s Indian River area, a place known for producing the world’s most delicious, high-quality Navel Oranges and Grapefruits. We’ve come a long way from that 1940s fruit stand and both our reach and our product offerings have grown, but our commitment to excellence has stayed the same. Fruit gifts from Hale Groves are always welcome…not only because of our rare, exclusive and signature items or because fruit is a healthy choice, but also because our premium produce is so superior to what you’ll find in your average grocery store. Read on to find out why:

The Best Trees

Fruit trees need the right growing environment. We seek out the best areas in the US that have the perfect growing conditions for each fruit.

From there, we source our fruit from family owned and operated farms that have the same commitment to quality that we do. Our family farmers pamper their fruit trees, planting them where they’ll receive the best natural light in the most nutrient-rich soil, and feeding, watering and pruning them carefully to ensure they produce the best fruit possible.

Next, we make sure our fruit is harvested from older trees, because mature trees produce the best-tasting fruit. This is due to young trees needing to focus most of their energy on expanding their own root systems, so they don’t have as much energy left over to spend on producing fruit. It is because of this that young trees tend to produce smaller crops early in the season, and savvy farmers are quick to harvest this fruit (which is typically less sweet and more acidic) so the young tree can get on with the business of maturing. Established trees, on the other hand, take their time growing their fruit, and the citrus fruits harvested from them around mid-season usually have the best flavor.

Our resolution to provide our customers with fruit from mature trees is one of the many things that distinguishes us from conventional fruit sellers, who don’t differentiate between one tree and another so long as the fruit is ripe. This is why the fruit you get from the grocery store tends to be inconsistent, while ours is always the best available at harvesttime.

Freshness

Our in-season fruit arrives fresh from the farm for a flavor you can’t beat.

Nothing compares with the flavor of farm-fresh fruit. In fact, fresh is part of the Hale Groves Guarantee…unlike other gift companies, we don’t start picking your fruit until we receive your order. You can be sure that when you click on Checkout, your order of Grove Navels or Ruby Red Grapefruit is still on the tree, soaking up as much sweeting sunshine as possible for the best flavor.

So, we wait until we receive your order before harvesting our fruit. It’s at this point that most conventional fruit sellers would send their fruit to cold storage, where it might sit in a temperature-controlled environment for weeks before it’s sent to your local grocery store. Not us - ours goes right to our closest packing house for packaging, then is immediately sent out to you or your gift recipient. Typically, it takes less than a week for our fruit to arrive from our trees to your door. Unless you have a tree of your own to pick from, you just can’t match that kind of freshness anywhere else!

Attention to Detail

Finding dedicated, high-quality growing partners who consistently deliver superior produce across the United States is just a beginning…Hale Grows is also very involved in researching and implementing best growing practices to produce the best fruit. Like all fruit sellers, Hale Groves uses test instruments to measure the sweetness of our fruit as required by the United States Department of Agriculture. But while conventional fruit sellers are satisfied with fruit that meets the minimum standards required by the USDA, we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

A fruit crop’s sweetness is measured by degrees Brix, a measurement that estimates the sugar content in the juice of the fruit. Most states require that all citrus fruit sold in that state have a minimum of 8.0 degrees Brix, but our minimum is 10.0 degrees. In fact, our ideal for our citrus fruit is 12- or 13-degrees Brix, because our goal is to provide our customers with the highest quality fruit gifts available.

Using gadgets to test the sweetness of our fruit is a good thing, but there’s no substitute for the personal touch that comes from inspecting it for size and quality and packaging it for perfect arrival. Once upon a time, Steve Hale picked and packed his homegrown oranges himself, while his wife, Polly, typed out the shipping labels and wrote the gift cards for the fruit they sent out. That hands-on tradition continues to this day…once your order comes in, we pick your fruit by hand, taking the time to examine each piece carefully for blemishes and imperfections before sending it to the packing house. At the packing house, it’s beautifully packaged (again, by hand) in such a way as to ensure its perfect condition upon arrival. It’s an attention to detail you can count on!

Peak Season Fruit

Our fruit’s availability starts later and ends sooner than the national seasonal predictions, but there’s a good reason for this – it’s because we want you to have the best fruit available, and fruits harvested at the beginning and end of the season don’t usually meet our rigorous standards.

Remember how we said that young trees tend to produce earlier in the season, and we only provide our customers with fruit from mature trees? Conventional fruit sellers don’t make that distinction, but we do because fruit picked earlier in the harvest season tends to be higher in acidity and less sweet. Not only do mature trees produce better-quality fruit, but fruit that’s allowed to ripen fully on the tree (especially citrus fruit) develops a more vibrant, sweeter flavor as its juice sacs fill and the acids start to fall off. This is why our juicy grapefruits have a delightful, tangy-sweet, “bright” flavor, as opposed to the mouth-puckeringly bitter flavor that most people expect.

Because we want our customers to enjoy juicy citrus fruits with a firm texture and a balanced, tangy-sweet flavor, we also end our citrus season earlier than the national average. End-of-season fruit is too often overripe, with a too-sweet flavor that lacks citrus’s characteristic tang due to the acids in the fruit falling off over the course of the season. Plus, late-season citrus often has an unpleasantly soft, sometimes mushy texture, and its shelf-life is shorter, while peak-season citrus, properly stored, can taste fresh and perfect for up to a month.

The Hale Difference

The fruit you find in a chain grocery store needs to have met certain standards before it gets there. Our standards for our fruit are even stricter, because “good enough” isn’t good enough for our customers – we want you and your gift recipients to enjoy the best fruit available!

That’s why we came up with “The Hale Difference” – our guarantee that if your fruit doesn’t arrive fresh and perfect and your and/or your gift recipients are not totally delighted with it, we’ll make it right. Premium fruit from premium trees, perfectly chosen and packaged, sent direct from the tree to your family and friends…it’s no wonder we’ve built a reputation for freshness and flavor that’s unique in the industry! Fresher, better…you’ll taste it in every piece of fruit we offer. That’s the Hale Difference.