Cherries are one of my favorite fruits and if they are not yours yet, I hope this post helps you to have a good user experience so that you are able to pleasantly enjoy fresh cherries all season long! This post is all about how to select cherries, in order to be able to enjoy them to their fullest during the short seasons that they are available.

(This post is an excerpt from The Produce Nerd’s Grocery Guide. You can learn more about the Grocery Guide, which covers this information for 55 different produce items, with input from 26 crop-specific companies HERE.)

How to Select & Store Cherries

What to look for when picking the best quality cherries? 

• You want to pick a bag with firm cherries, with stems included. The stems indicate the freshness of the cherries, so you want to select cherries that have green stems that have not yet turned brown.
• Once the stem has been removed, that leaves an opening in the fruit and is the first place that pathogen growth will occur, which also means that it is more likely to go bad faster compared to the intact fruit with the stems.

Common issues to avoid when selecting cherries?

• Brown/shriveled stems – This does not mean the fruit is bad, it just means that it is older and will not last as long.
• Splitting (any openings in the fruit will be the first place for pathogen growth to occur) – These can be large splits that were caused by the rain and are very obvious, as well as small openings in the fruit that might have been caused by a bird or during handling.
• Decay – I hate to say this, but it’s true: it is very common to find at least one incidence of decay in a 2 pound cherry bag at the store. My advice is to take a good glance at all of the fruit in the bag to see if you can spot any, and if you don’t, do an additional review once you get home. It is one thing to buy a bag with an incidence of decay, but if you remove it quickly once you get home, your fruit has a better chance of lasting longer compared to if you leave the decayed fruit in the mix.

Are there any common issues that are specifically caused by bad grocery store handling?

• Lack of refrigeration at the grocery store. The cooler they are kept before arriving at your house, the longer they will last. 

Are there any new cultivars that are being grown that might have different quality indicators or common issues to look out for?

• Breeding has been ongoing for years to try to get an earlier cherry cultivar to the market that requires less chilling hours (a certain number of hours in a set temperature range that the trees need to experience in order to break dormancy and flower). Cherries have such a short harvesting window, that even a few days makes a difference. Currently, although the ‘Bing’ cherry is the most popular red cherry on the market, there are multiple red cherry cultivars that are being sold and are not marketed using their cultivar name, just their color.

What is the best way to store cherries at home?

• In the refrigerator.
• Cherries are the only produce that I am okay recommending that you wash before you eat them (except for prepped fruit and vegetable salads). I like to wash them right when I bring them home from the grocery store, so that I can see the quality of the cherries, sort out any bad ones, and they will be good and ready to eat. And, plus, how long do cherries really last in your refrigerator?!

Are there any common things that consumers should look for not mentioned above?

• Since cherries are commonly sold in bulk, you need to inspect the fruit inside of the bag, both superficially at the store and thoroughly once you get home to make sure and remove any pathogen growth on the cherries. If not, it will spread rapidly.

What is your favorite way to eat and prepare cherries?

Fresh! There is nothing better than a big, fresh bowl of cherries! And, if you have young children, I highly recommend that you invest in a cherry pitter to make it a really fun and stress-free experience for all involved!