Driscoll’s Blogging Event & Pebble Beach Food & Wine 2013

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Last week we traveled to Monterey, California to attend a blogging event with our favorite berry company, Driscoll’s.

Driscoll’s mission is to: “continually delight our Berry Consumers through alignment with our Customers and Berry Growers.” All of Driscoll’s efforts revolve around providing a delightful eating experience with every single Driscoll berry. They focus on flavor, color, texture, shape, and aroma. Driscoll’s berries are definitely delightful to eat, but the entire company is delightful.

Driscoll’s is a family-owned and operated company. Driscoll’s premium berries are grown by independent farmers and sold under the Driscoll’s brand. Every single employee we talked to was passionate about their job, work, and about berries.

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We spent a day touring Driscoll’s. We started at the nursery where every Driscoll’s berry begins life. It was neat to see the tiny little seedlings. The seedlings are grown in a germ-free environment. When they are ready, they are planted in the nursery fields.

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When the plants are ready, mowers cut the foilage from the plants and the plants are dug up by the roots. The plants are trimmed and stored at a cooler facility until planting time. Lots of raspberry plants!

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After the nursery, we visited the strawberry fields. Everywhere I looked I saw strawberry plants. What a glorious site! Strawberry fields forever!

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Driscoll’s provided us with fun boots to walk through the fields! Love the black and white!

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I have never seen such beautiful strawberries in my life! Dr. Phil (a.k.a. Dr. Strawberry) took us on a tour of the fields. I was super impressed by his knowledge, experience, and passion for strawberries.

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He let us pick some strawberries. I was like a kid at the candy store! I love strawberries! Isn’t that berry perfect? All of Driscoll’s berries are!

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I wanted to save my perfect strawberry forever, but temptation gave in. I had to take a bite! I am so glad I did because my strawberry really was perfect! Ripe, juicy, sweet-berry perfection!

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We also got to taste test a few varieties of berries. We all had different favorites, but we all loved them all!

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We were spoiled with a delicious lunch on the patio and of course my favorite part was the berry dessert! Berrylicious!

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After lunch, we visited the blackberry and raspberry fields. The berries weren’t ripe, so it was a little torturous to hear Marco talk about the berries, but the plants were still pretty:)

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And Driscoll’s did bring along some berries for us to snack on while we walked through the fields. Gorgeous raspberries!

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All of Driscoll’s berries have names. The berries really are part of the family!

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When the berries are ripe, the berries are handpicked and packed in the field. The Driscoll’s berries you eat are only touched one time before you touch them. Picked, packed, and cooled until they are ready to be shipped! So neat!

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I brought some berries back to Caleb and as soon as he saw them, he attacked. He loves Driscoll’s berries. He can’t say berry yet, so he calls them B’s! He was yelling-B! B! B!

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The next day, we attended the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Event. Driscoll’s sponsored the event so there were beautiful berries everywhere!

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I loved the Driscoll’s booth! Look at all of those berries! Such a fun display!

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A group shot with some of the bloggers that attended the event! We never got a full group shot, sad! I guess we were all too busy eating berries! It was such a fun group! Yay for berry friends! We definitely felt the berry love:)

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The berry cups were super cute! I had one…or two, or three:)

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The Pebble Beach Food &Wine Event was obviously filled with wine and good food! Of course, I found the sweets:) I loved the salted caramel macarons from Tout Sweet. So good!

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Jacques Torres had a chocolate table set up and you better believe I stopped by! Chocolate heaven!

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I also attended a cooking demo with Danny Meyer and Carmen Quagliata.

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It was a gorgeous day in Pebble Beach! We walked down to the golf course to walk off some calories and to enjoy the sunshine and ocean breeze!

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Meet my new BFF, Tess, The Blender Girl! Love her!

Thanks Driscoll’s for an amazing event! We had a fabulous time from start to finish!

Driscoll’s vision is: “to become the world’s berry company, enriching the lives of everyone we touch.” You are our berry company and we have been inspired, enriched, and delighted! Thank you for everything!

Visit Driscoll’s website for more information about the world’s finest berries! You can also follow Driscoll’s on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Disclosure: Driscoll’s invited us to attend the event and paid for our trip, but our opinions are our own. 

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I'm Maria and my husband is Josh. We share a love of cooking, baking, and entertaining. We enjoy creating recipes that are simple, fresh, and family friendly. We love sitting around the table with good food, good conversation, and good friends and family! Our kitchen is always open!
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  1. I’m very conscious that strawberries are ranked very high on the list of pesticide-laden foods. Did you hear anyone talk about organic farming???

  2. Dam, I live near there, why can’t I know about these events, I love Driscolls Berries! It looks like you had a great time!! Thanks for sharing!

  3. Wow those photos look DIVINE! We even get Driscoll’s berries in both Oz and the UK, had no idea how big they were!

  4. So jealous! Those strawberries look so good!! Oh I want to bite one right of the screen!! What a cool trip!

  5. What a VIBRANT trip – the colors are so gorgeous! Guess that’s what happens when you have such beautiful subjects (the food, location AND the people) to work with! 🙂

  6. Looks like a fun time for you. Unfortunately, Driscoll’s utopian vision of perfect strawberries is a myth. I am so tired of buying strawberries (including Driscoll’s) and being disappointed by woody fruit with almost no sweetness to the taste. I long for tender sweet berries.

    1. Sorry you haven’t had a good strawberry in awhile. Every Driscoll’s berry I tasted was divine!

  7. We could live on Driscoll’s berries here, so good! Nothing beats picking them and eating them right off the plant. What a great weekend!

  8. Barbara, I sell almost exclusively Driscoll’s at the store I work at and have found they can waver in quality depending on variety and production origin. We just came back to US production and my favorite variety of strawberry (no clue what it is but I know the look of it) and they have been delicious. There is one strawberry variety I always find more bland and underripe and one I find always overripe by time it gets to us. The strawberry varieties from overseas during the winter also tend to leave me less satisfied much of the time.

    That being said I do adore Driscoll’s berries, as they are way more consistent than the other brands we carry when demand is high and orders hard to fill. Their raspberries are seldom disatisfying. We get rave reviews from all our guests about them, especially in winter when they taste like summer. Of course no berry tastes as good as the one fresh picked. And I prefer to let mine come to room temp before eating.

    I would have loved to get to roam the Driscoll’s farms and play with berries. Suck lucky people you are, lol.

    1. The berries are best at room temperature-good point! Sometimes it is hard to wait though:) I am glad you enjoy Driscoll’s berries! We sure do!

  9. Mmm YUM! I am lucky enough to live in the Bay Area and have access to Driscoll’s berries pretty much year-round. I love them, and have never had a bad/flavorless batch in the 7 years we’ve been in this area. It’s nice to know more about the company and it makes me even happier to support them! But now all of your pictures made me hungry…I foresee a lunch run to the store for Driscoll’s berries!

  10. Thankyou for the lovely shout out Maria. LOVE that photo of us. What a fantastic weekend. I still have a cheek ache from smiling. Such fun times… Meeting you was the highlight of the trip! Can’t wait to see you L.A and then in Austin for BlogHer Food. I need my Maria Fix! Love xxx

    1. It was a fantastic weekend! I miss you already! Can’t wait until we can meet up again! xx

  11. Looks like a blast!! I love the way Driscoll’s seem to be the only berry that doesn’t turn mushy after a few days in the fridge. My kids can eat them by the package too!

    1. Caleb hogs all of the berries in our family. I better start keeping a hidden stash for me:)

  12. Oh my! Seems like it was so much fun to go down there…and gorgeous! (Did you miss our Wasatch Mtns?) And what fun treats to have with all the berries! Caleb is just too cute!

  13. Love Driscolls…..from my own home town…well I am from Santa Cruz, so not very far. Reading your blog on this event was making miss home and of course strawberries.

  14. What a great post! I would have loved to go to the Pebble Beach Food & Wine event (I live in SF, so it was so close), but couldn’t quite get away. Alas, the life running a start-up! I also really enjoyed getting the inside scoop on Driscoll. I buy their berries every single week, so it was great to know they have such a wonderful philosophy and team! Of course there is nothing quite like the strawberries I grew up with, from our garden, but they’re still tasty! Thanks for sharing your adventures!

  15. This is the second time you’ve posted about my home town. I drive by the Driscoll berry fields, every morning, as I commute from the Salinas Valley to Pacific Grove (where I work). It’s quite an event at the PBFW, isn’t it? Who knows, I might’ve walked right past y’all and didn’t spot you. There were so many people!

  16. A trip to California sounds so nice, especially if it involves Driscoll’s berries. They’re my favorite. I had no idea they are only touched once. Interesting and quite cool!

  17. Wow Maria! Love that top you were wearing!! so pretty (and youre always commenting on how you have nothing to wear lol) Strawberries and whip cream are my fav! btw do you own thishttp://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/isi-gourmet-whip-plus/?pkey=e%7Cwhip%2Bcream%7C2%7Cbest%7C0%7C1%7C24%7C%7C1&cm_src=PRODUCTSEARCH||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_-NoMerchRules-_-

  18. I just read through a lawsuit against Driscoll’s alleging that they call their workers “independent contractors” even though Driscoll’s owns the land and the berries, and the workers make less than minimum wage. These berries are exclusive in the organic and nonorganic section of my grocery store. Did you have any contact/conversations with any of the farm workers? I hate to boycott them since there is no alternative, but I can’t stand companies who fail to pay their workers minimum wage.

    1. Hi Jenni-thank you for your question. I shared it with Driscoll’s and following is their response. “Driscoll’s does not own land but rather we partner with independent farmers around the world. We recognize that farm workers are an essential part of the nation’s food production system and we require that all of the independent farms who grow for Driscoll’s abide by the letter and spirit of all applicable laws governing working conditions. Driscoll’s farmers consistently earn high scores on food safety, worker and environmental welfare audits. Should you have any additional questions please contact Driscoll’s directly at 1-800-871-3333 or email consumerreply@driscolls.com”. I hope that helps!

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