Driscoll's bred berries and built a cold chain to sell them year-round

Strawberries rot in days and ripen in one season, so for much of the 20th century fresh berries were a short, local, unbranded crop. Growers were hostage to timing and distance, and the product could not travel far.

Driscoll's answer was twofold. First, breeding: it released its own proprietary strawberry variety in 1958 and kept adding raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, built on genetics and a network of growers. Second, the chain: it grows across 30+ regions worldwide so something is always in season somewhere.

Then it made the haul survivable. Berries are cooled to about 2°C within roughly two hours of being picked, moved through a cold chain of 70+ warehouses, and tracked with temperature probes embedded in the fruit all the way to hundreds of customer locations.

The result was roughly a third of the US berry market and global leadership in a category it effectively created. A berry became a year-round staple instead of a summer treat, and the brand became the standard others are measured against.