Blueberry breaks record as world’s heaviest

A blueberry grown in Australia has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the heaviest in the world.

The golf-ball-sized berry, picked on Nov. 13 at a farm run by Costa Group in Corindi, Australia, came in at 20.4 grams, or 0.72 ounces, and measures more than an inch and a half across, about 10 times the size of an average blueberry.

It easily surpassed the previous record holder, which also came from Australia and weighed 16.2 grams or 0.57 ounces.

Senior horticulturist Brad Hocking said the team at Costa, which develops one or two new blueberry varieties a year through its variety improvement program, was “stoked” when the berry was weighed. The record-smashing berry was only one of about 20 of a similar size from the Eterna variety.

“When we put the largest one on the scales that really blew us away, it was well above what we knew the current record to be,” he told NBC News in a phone interview Friday.

Costa says it develops new varieties in response to changing consumer needs, including a demand for bigger blueberries.

“We believe that it’s because people are changing the way that they eat blueberries, using them more for snacking” in addition to the more traditional uses of baking and breakfast, Hocking said.

Though fruit tends to decline in quality as it gets larger, he said the Eterna variety was “consistently large, firm and flavorsome” and “has a really good shelf life.”

The record-breaking berry has been frozen for now and may be cast in resin and mounted on a wall, Hocking said.

“We don’t really know what to do with it,” he laughed.