Dragon fruit is a delicious, healthy, and unique-looking tropical fruit.
It has a unique appearance with its bright red skin that has pineapple-like leaves sprouting from it.
Because dragon fruit is rich in antioxidants and probiotics, a lot of people like to eat it for its health benefits.
However, making dragon fruit a regular part of your diet can be expensive.
You may wonder what it is about dragon fruit that makes it so expensive.
Why Is Dragon Fruit So Expensive? (10 Reasons)
The average price of dragon fruit ranges from $6 to $10 each.
Dragon fruit is expensive because of its specific requirements for growth, high demand, and the costs of growing it.
Let’s look at these and some other factors in more detail.
1. Climate-Specific Growth
One of the reasons dragon fruit is expensive is that it requires a certain climate in which to grow.
Dragon fruit needs a hot or warm environment in which to grow.
It does well in tropical areas.
As such, only a few countries are capable of producing it.
Those countries and continents include:
- Mexico
- Asia
- Central America
- South America
- Israel
This makes dragon fruit expensive because it means other countries aren’t able to grow their own fruit.
They have to rely on imports.
This also means that the production of dragon fruit isn’t as high as it could be.
It isn’t plentiful.
If it were a type of fruit that could grow almost anywhere, then more countries would be able to grow it and the supply would be bigger.
That isn’t the case, so the supply of dragon fruit isn’t as big as some people might hope.
With a smaller supply available, the price of dragon fruit becomes quite expensive.
Dragon fruit is expensive because it requires a specific type of climate in which to grow which drives its scarcity.
2. Requires Handpicking Harvests
Dragon fruit isn’t a type of fruit that’s typically harvested with machines.
Although its skin isn’t that delicate, it can be very difficult to determine if the fruit is actually ripe.
As such, most dragon fruit farmers will hire workers to handpick their pieces of fruit.
Each worker will go into the fields and test each fruit to determine if it’s ripe enough for harvest.
If it is, then the worker needs to carefully extract it from the tree.
If it’s not, then the worker leaves it on the tree to grow a bit longer.
A machine may not be able to tell the difference between a fruit that’s ripe and one that isn’t.
They’d just pick all of them.
That could be wasteful since the farmer would be unable to sell the unripe ones.
Using human workers, however, is more expensive.
Harvesting dragon fruit takes time, so farmers have to pay their workers over long periods of time.
That means high labor costs.
Since their labor costs are high, they’re going to sell their dragon fruit at high prices.
Dragon fruit is expensive because labor costs are high.
3. Seasonal Fruit
Dragon fruit is also seasonal.
It only grows during a certain part of the year.
It’s not a fruit that grows year-round.
This further impacts its scarcity.
Since it only grows during a certain part of the year, farmers only have one chance to grow and harvest as much as they can.
They also need to make money on their fruit while they can.
As such, they put a high price on the fruit to ensure they’re able to make their investments worthwhile.
This is different from plants that grow no matter what the season is.
Since they’re in constant supply, farmers can keep pushing them out which helps meet demand.
They’re cheaper because they’re in large supply.
Dragon fruit doesn’t have that benefit.
Once a farmer harvests the season’s yield, that’s it until next year.
If the demand is high for dragon fruit, then the supply of dragon fruit isn’t going to last long.
The price skyrockets to mitigate demand.
Dragon fruit is expensive because it only grows once a year.
4. High Transportation Costs
It’s quite expensive to transport dragon fruit.
For one, dragon fruit is a large fruit.
It takes up a lot of space.
A farmer who has a high yield of dragon fruit is likely going to need to hire a few trucks to deliver their full yield.
They’re also quite heavy.
Since they’re large and heavy, shipping companies are going to be charging farmers extra.
With higher shipping costs, farmers have to charge more for their fruit to cover the cost.
Fuel costs are another factor that influences the price of dragon fruit.
When fuel costs are high, it becomes more expensive to ship dragon fruit.
It isn’t just ground travel that becomes more expensive, either.
Since a lot of countries have to import their dragon fruit, they’re also looking at paying for sea or air travel as well.
Then they have even more ground transport costs to cover.
If fuel prices are high, then those costs are even more expensive.
Whether it’s the farmer or store, someone is going to be looking at covering their transport costs.
That means higher prices on dragon fruit.
Dragon fruit is expensive because of the high cost of transportation.
5. High Demand
Dragon fruit is in high demand for a lot of reasons.
For one, its unique appearance makes it a bit of a show-stopper when you’re entertaining friends.
Some people simply enjoy buying dragon fruit because it’s a great conversation starter.
Others enjoy dragon fruit for its flavor.
Some claim that dragon fruit tastes a bit like kiwi but with a citrus bite to it.
They buy a lot of dragon fruit because it tastes good.
Then there are the health benefits.
For one, it has a large amount of Vitamin A in it.
It also contains a decent amount of calcium which is helpful for bone health and tissue health.
Dragon fruit contains a healthy amount of antioxidants as well.
Antioxidants can help remove free radicals floating around in your body.
By removing them, you reduce the chances of developing cancer.
Dragon fruit can also potentially help reduce your blood sugar.
That’s ideal for people who have to keep an eye on their blood sugar.
Others enjoy it because it’s packed full of prebiotics, which helps your digestion.
Since dragon fruit is healthy, a lot of people want to get their hands on it to enjoy its health benefits.
That further increases the demand.
Since demand is high, the price is also going to be high.
Dragon fruit is expensive because it’s in high demand.
6. Yield Problems Due To Pests
There’s no shortage of pests that threaten dragon fruit.
Certain scaly insects and mealybugs tend to feed on the fruit.
They have piercers that enable them to break through the fruit’s skin and drink the sap from within it.
They can damage dragon fruit because they essentially steal all the fruit inside the shell.
They’re also a bit difficult to kill since they have waxy coatings on their bodies.
Another pest is aphids.
Aphids can also damage the plant because they’re also eating the fruit inside.
They’re an even bigger problem since they excrete honeydew.
That attracts ants.
The ants won’t attack the aphids but instead will eat the honeydew.
If anything, the ants can keep the aphids safe by protecting them against other predators.
Pests can result in yield losses.
That means a shortage of dragon fruit which increases their price.
Farmers must also take on costs to protect their fruit from pests.
That might include using pesticides or more natural means of killing them.
Those costs also add to the price of dragon fruit.
Dragon fruit is expensive because pests can cause shortages and higher costs.
7. Yield Problems Due To Disease
Another problem farmers face with growing dragon fruit is disease.
Many diseases impact dragon fruit.
Some diseases impact the stem of the fruit while others go right for the fruit, itself, or even the flower.
Nematodes can also bring disease to dragon fruit.
The problem with disease is that it impacts a farmer’s yield.
A farmer might lose a quarter of their entire yield if the disease is widespread.
That can result in a significant drop in supply.
If there isn’t enough supply to go around, then the price of dragon fruit is going to increase substantially.
That’s even more true if many farmers end up facing the same disease.
To avoid losing their crops, farmers will often buy herbicides or other products that can help protect their trees and fruit from disease.
Since they’re taking on higher costs to protect and grow their dragon fruit trees, they’re going to sell them at higher prices.
Dragon fruit is expensive because of the shortage that can occur when disease strikes.
8. Import Fees
Although dragon fruit tends to grow in tropical areas, that doesn’t keep other countries from buying it.
A lot of countries that want to offer rich diets to their people will import dragon fruit.
In particular, farmers or produce corporations recognize the marketability of dragon fruit.
They’ll import dragon fruit and resell it at a much higher price to make a profit.
The problem with importing anything is that it usually comes with import fees or taxes.
This makes buying the fruit more expensive, so those entities will need to sell the fruit at higher prices to cover those expenses.
Dragon fruit is expensive because import fees can make them costlier.
9. Rots Relatively Quickly
A problem with dragon fruit is that it doesn’t last very long.
Dragon fruit tends to last only for a week or two by the time you get it home.
If you cut the shell open and expose the fruit, itself, to the air, then you’re looking at only a matter of days before it starts to rot.
This makes dragon fruit expensive because sellers can sometimes face a large amount of waste.
If they’re unable to sell the products they have quickly enough, then the dragon fruit might rot.
That could mean their investments went to waste.
To try and recover, they might put a higher price on the dragon fruit that is still sellable.
Its short shelf-life also means that those at home are likely going to need to buy more dragon fruit.
Since it rots quickly, they have to keep buying more to stay stocked.
That increases demand for dragon fruit which also impacts its price.
Dragon fruit is expensive because it has a short shelf-life.
10. Exotic Fruit
A final reason dragon fruit is expensive is that it’s seen as an exotic or unique type of fruit.
It has a strange appearance that other fruits don’t quite have.
The flesh is also quite unique looking.
Its uniqueness gives it a sort of luxury aesthetic to it.
That adds to its price as well.
Dragon fruit is expensive because it’s an odd-looking fruit that has some value to it based on its appearance alone.
