A new Guinness World Record has just been set that’s truly un-berrievable. Hailing from Corindi in NSW, a blueberry has tipped the scales and become the heaviest ever recorded. Weighing in at a whopping 20.4 grams with a diameter akin to that of a golf ball, this is a berry big achievement.

Brad Hocking, the blueberry farmer behind this behemoth berry, shared his initial reaction, “When we put it on the scales I was a bit shocked. I knew they were big but had to do a double take to make sure.” This juicy giant was nurtured to its record-breaking weight by Hocking, along with Jessica Scalzo and Marie-France Courtois, of Costa farms.

The record-breaking berry is of the Eterna variety and is part of Costa’s variety improvement program’s (VIP) – a program dedicated to developing new and improved blueberry varieties each year. Unlike the fleeting fame of most record-breakers, this blueberry’s legacy will be preserved forever, frozen in time, and potentially cast in resin to hang on the wall as a berry impressive trophy.

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Defying the common trade-off between size and quality, the Eterna variety maintains a firm texture and a flavour that’s sweet and slightly tart. “The consumer experience is consistently good with great flavour,” Hocking boasts, making it clear that this is no mere fluke of nature – at the time of picking there are about 20 berries of a similar size.

Hocking attributes the growing demand for larger fruit to a shift in consumer habits, from using berries in baked goods and breakfasts to enjoying them as stand-alone snacks. While the prospect of even bigger berries looms on the horizon, Costa’s primary focus remains on enhancing agronomic traits like heat tolerance and pest resistance, ensuring that their blueberries can thrive in diverse conditions.

The journey to this record-breaking moment was no overnight success; it was a “long time coming,” as Hocking puts it, with about ten years from the start of the breeding process to commercialisation. Through traditional breeding techniques, including the painstaking task of hand pollination, Costa has cultivated not only the Eterna but also other varieties like Delight and Arana, each with its unique benefits and extended production profiles.

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