“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” is an expression that has applied to fruits and vegetables for far too long. Only, in this case, “having your cake” means a product with a long shelf life, and “eating your cake” means enjoying the full flavor it’s capable of.

Moving products from field to fork is a complicated and logistics-heavy process that takes precious time away from a product’s shelf life — especially when products are out of season. To ensure that retailers and consumers get fresh produce that keeps on grocery store and refrigerator shelves, the industry has often focused breeding efforts on selecting varieties that provide longer-lasting freshness. All too often, this has meant that flavor has taken a backseat.

Seminis® products are helping to change that. Using molecular marker technology, our breeders efficiently identify plants with genes for desired traits, helping us breed products that not only have a longer shelf life, but also offer the flavor profile consumers crave.

Melorange™, several cantaloupe hybrid varieties introduced in 2011, is a great example of that. Melorange cantaloupes feature genetics that help them keep from spoiling after harvest and that cause them to be, on average, 14% sweeter tasting than other wintertime cantaloupes as determined by professional taste evaluators. The combination of these genes allows growers to harvest the melons when they’re ripe and gives consumers the taste they’re looking for.

In the future, Seminis plans to introducing Summerslice™ watermelon hybrids, which will feature a great size, a flesh that helps them drip less when bitten into, and of course, a long shelf life and great taste. A new tomato hybrid called Ventero is also on the horizon, and efforts are currently underway to provide many other better tasting products, including peppers and lettuce.

Seminis is dedicated to developing fruits and vegetables that last longer, taste better and provide nutrition all year long.