The History of Fresh Produce

South Africa: The Rooibos Dispute

Why did the Khoisan people of South Africa spend nine years in legal negotiations to receive 1.5 percent of an industry built entirely on knowledge they had held for three centuries — and what does that tell us about who owns a plant? How did a Russian-Jewish immigrant with a mule cart, a country doctor with a germination problem, and a mother with an allergic infant between them turn a mountain bush into a global health product? And what happens when one of the world's largest food corporations files patents on traditional medicine it didn't discover? Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of South Africa and rooibos — the biopiracy battle, the benefit-sharing agreement, and the red bush that grows nowhere else on Earth... ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here [https://www.jkfresh.com/]! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! 1. Share this episode with your friends 2. Give a 5-star rating 3. Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

Qatar: The Locust and the Desert

Before the gas flares and the glass towers, before the air conditioning and the sovereign wealth fund, what did Qatar actually have? Why was a single tree the difference between survival and starvation on one of the most inhospitable peninsulas on Earth? How did a brutal, debt-ridden pearl economy collapse almost overnight — and at whose hands? And how does a country go, in a single human lifetime, from 16,000 hungry people on a shrinking strip of sand to hosting the most controversial World Cup in history? John and Patrick tell the extraordinary story of Qatar — from the date palm groves and the pearl beds of the Gulf, to the oil discovery that changed everything. ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here [https://www.jkfresh.com/]! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! 1. Share this episode with your friends 2. Give a 5-star rating 3. Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

Czechia: Gregor Mendel's Peas and the Birth of Genetics

Why did a monk in a Moravian monastery spend eight years counting 30,000 pea plants — and how did the number three to one unlock the secret of heredity that Charles Darwin couldn't solve? Why did Gregor Mendel publish one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century to almost complete silence, only for his paper to be rediscovered thirty-four years later by three scientists who had all independently reached the same conclusion? And how did the statistician who accused him of fraud turn out to have made the statistical error himself? Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of Czechia and the pea — the monastery garden, the number that changed biology, and the 145-year arc from Mendel's first cross-pollination to the Human Genome Project... ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here [https://www.jkfresh.com/]! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! 1. Share this episode with your friends 2. Give a 5-star rating 3. Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

Portugal: Spices, Empire, and the Pepper That Built Lisbon

Why did the Visigoths demand three thousand pounds of black pepper as the ransom for Rome — and what does that tell us about a climbing vine in Kerala that reshaped the entire history of the western world? How did a country of one million people on the edge of Europe come to control half the pepper reaching the continent, and build the Jerónimos Monastery to celebrate a voyage driven by spice? And what happens to an empire built entirely on a markup when someone finally figures out how to remove the middleman? Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of Portugal and pepper — Vasco da Gama's ninety-three days at sea, the dismantling of the Venetian spice monopoly, and the Torre de Belém, still standing on the Lisbon waterfront, paid for by a vine in India... ---------- In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! * Share this episode with your friends * Give a 5-star rating * Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

Scotland: Dundee Marmalade and the Keiller Family

How did a storm-battered Spanish ship, a Dundee harbour, and a grocer's wife with a pan full of unsaleable bitter oranges accidentally create one of the first registered trademarks in British history — and a product that would end up on breakfast tables from Edinburgh to Bombay? Why did the family fortune from that single kitchen experiment eventually pay for the restoration of Avebury, one of the greatest prehistoric monuments in Europe? And what does any of this have to do with Paddington Bear and Monty Don? Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of Scotland and marmalade — the Keiller factory, the empire in a jar, and the most consequential use of unsaleable citrus in history... ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here [https://www.jkfresh.com/]! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! 1. Share this episode with your friends 2. Give a 5-star rating 3. Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]