Skip to main content
Back
How do we cultivate pineapples?
How do pineapples grow?
How do pineapples end up in the crate?
Pineapples and conservation?
The secret about pineapples
Why is the fruit harvested by hand?
How much care do pineapples need?
What is different about organic farming?
What about plant protection?
Healthy soil for healthy fruit

Journey to a pineapple farm

How do we cultivate pineapples?

How do we cultivate pineapples?

Ideal soil for growing pineapples.
On the farm, the pineapple field is prepared.
The pineapple plants grow in the midst of forests and shrubs.
To encourage the growth of the fruit, the crowns are pruned.
This process involves cutting each crown on the farm individually.
Our employees care for each fruit by hand.
The crown is very carefully cut.

How do we cultivate pineapples?

Pineapple plants are very sensitive. They need a hot tropical climate, but they don’t like strong sun. They need rain, but not too much, otherwise they lose their flavour. The ideal temperature is between 22 and 29 degrees Celsius. The temperature must never be colder than 16 degrees or hotter than 32 degrees. Regions like Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Ghana and Ivory Coast offer a good mix of mild nights and hot sunny days. Growing pineapples requires a lot of time and expertise. Producing the best quality fruit also demands patience and skill.

How do pineapples grow?

How do pineapples grow?

The growth cycle of a pineapple.
42 weeks after seeding: The pineapple plant is carefully planted in the ground by hand.
43rd week: The plant starts to grow.
44th week: Purple flowers appear - about 6 petals grow every day.
46th week: The flowers turn into tiny fruit which join together to make a single pineapple.
48th week: Once the crown starts to appear, the flowers dry out and the pineapple begins to grow.
51st week: The full-grown pineapple now ripens on the plant until it acquires its full sweetness.
58th week: The pineapple is ripe and ready for harvesting. The external color of the fruit does not necessarily reflect the internal condition of the fruit. The fruit is always harvested at exactly the right point of ripeness because pineapples do not continue to ripen after harvest.

How do pineapples grow?

The pineapple plant is planted very carefully in well-prepared soil. It grows best in a tropical climate where the nights are mild and the days are hot and sunny. The many tiny flowers turn into small berries which join together to make a pineapple fruit. It takes from 14 to 18 months before the first ripe and juicy pineapples can be harvested, and another 13 months for the second harvest.

How do pineapples end up in the crate?

How do pineapples end up in the crate?

Arriving fresh from the farm, the fruit is immediately washed to remove dust and soil.
Any overripe fruit is set aside for the local market. The quality of this fruit would suffer on the long journey by sea.
At the local market the fruit may also be sold without the crown, for example, to be made into juice.
First the fruit is checked for quality.
The quality check includes size, weight, sugar and acid content, appearance, skin damage, colour and other factors.
The fruit is packed by hand, and this is the stage where the pineapples are categorised by size. When you buy a pineapple, look at the label. Dole Tropical Gold pineapples come in size 5 (large) to size 10 (small).
Each box is packed with fruit of the same size.
Pineapples come in very different sizes, but they all have the same extra-sweet flavour.
On the Dole label on the crown you will find a code that tells you which farm your pineapple came from.
The pineapple boxes are stacked carefully by hand on pallets.
The pallets are loaded into refrigerated containers and transported to the port. From here the delicious pineapples are shipped all over the world.

How do pineapples end up in the crate?

After being washed and quality-checked, the pineapples are packed by hand. The fruits are sorted by size and placed in the appropriate boxes. If 5 large fruits fit in one box, they are size 5; if they are smaller and 10 fit into the box, they are size 10. The careful packing of the pineapples is just as important as any other stage of production. Dole’s packing and processing stations follow very strict guidelines. Along with health and safety standards for employees, there are also rules for hygiene during packing and transport. Our employees wear special protective equipment and are fully trained to follow our procedures and the necessary rules, at every stage of the process.

Pineapples and conservation?

Pineapples and conservation?

Max León Pérez is responsible for Dole’s sustainability projects. These projects involve the protection of biodiversity and reforestation. He shows schoolchildren and local people how the community can help the whole world by protecting the environment and treating it with respect. Spend a day with him and find out how Dole puts sustainability into practice. Our farms also provide communities with a prime example of how economic growth can be achieved while protecting natural resources.

The secret about pineapples

The secret about pineapples

There are lots of myths about how to choose the best pineapple. You might have heard that you should pull the crown, look at the colour or smell the skin. We’re going to let you in on the secret of how to recognise the best fruit. We’ll also show you the quick and easy way to slice a pineapple. Take a look!

Why is the fruit harvested by hand?

Why is the fruit harvested by hand?

In growing regions it's often very hot during the day, so the fruit is usually picked early in the morning.
A conveyor belt runs over the fields to transport the harvested fruit.
The conveyor facilitates the harvesting process.
The fruit is not ready for picking at the same time. The pickers decide whether each individual fruit is ripe enough to harvest.
After the fruit has been selected on the farm …
… it is placed on the conveyor belt.
The conveyor transports the ripe pineapples safely to employees and then to the field bin.
Here the fruit is carefully arranged and stored until it is transported to the packing facility.

Why is the fruit harvested by hand?

Like most stages of production on a pineapple farm, harvesting is only done by hand. Selecting and picking the fruit off the plant requires a lot of skill. Our Dole team always wears protective equipment because the long leaves of the pineapple plants are very sharp.

The pickers place the freshly picked fruit on a conveyor belt. At the end of the conveyor employees work as a team to carefully place the fruit in the bins. Each area of the farm must be harvested up to three times in order to pick only perfectly ripe fruit.

How much care do pineapples need?

How much care do pineapples need?

Yesenia Villalobos Elizondo has an important job on the farm: she makes sure the pineapples grow optimally. She has to prune the pineapple crowns with great skill, as well as care, because the fruit is guarded by long, pointed leaves. In her free time Yesenia is a keen football player. See what Yesenia's typical day is like!

What is different about organic farming?

What is different about organic farming?

Our employee David Gutiérrez knows that the better the soil, the bigger and better the harvest. He devotes a lot of time to the organic fertilizers used on our organic pineapple farm. Achieving the optimum soil conditions is no easy task.

There are many different factors to take into account, especially with organic production. David is an expert in his field. Find out about his work day and learn more about organic farming at Dole.

What about plant protection?

What about plant protection?

We use only the necessary amount of Crop Protection Products to protect our plants against pests and diseases, and implement alternative practices, when possible.
Kaolin, for example, works a bit like sunscreen, protecting the fruit against strong sun.
Ethylene encourages flower growth.

What about plant protection?

As far as pesticides are concerned, Dole's rule is: Use as little as possible, only as much as necessary, and never without the right precautions. To keep Crop Protection Product use to a minimum, Dole uses an integrated pest control programme known as IPM.

Dole producers expertly monitor the number of insects and pests and decide on a case-by-case basis which Crop Protection Products are required. Dole farms use innovative programmes for pest management. Dole also takes every possible step to protect soil and water quality.

Healthy soil for healthy fruit

Why does “pato” protect the soil?

Specially designed drainage canals remove excess water from the plantation.
Ground cover plants hold the soil together when there is heavy rain.
Pineapple planting is adapted to the landscape. Our engineers design the layout carefully to ensure maximum protection of the soil.
Different plants growing on the farm help to protect the soil.
Plastic film or grass is used between the beds to reduce erosion, pests and weeds. This helps to reduce Crop Protection Product use.
Bamboo stakes and pineapple plants are used as mechanical barriers, keeping the soil in place and slowing the flow of water in the drainage ditches.

Healthy soil for healthy fruit

Healthy soil is essential to healthy produce and flourishing, sustainable agriculture. Soil erosion caused by the absence of vegetation, heavy rainfall or strong wind is a natural process that can be increased by agricultural practices.

We give very high priority to soil protection. We have developed many different methods that ensure soil sustainability. Thanks to these measures, Dole farms register a soil erosion rate ranging from 1 to 7 tons while on average Costa Rica’s other agricultural activities face erosion rates of approximately 70 tons per hectare per year.

We train pineapple farmers and share our expertise through an association called “The National Chamber of Pineapple Producers and Exporters” – Cámara National de Productores y Exportadores de Piña.

We’ve reached the end of our journey to the pineapple plantation

But there’s plenty more to discover in the world of Dole. We hope you’ve been inspired by our passion for fruit.