The History of Fresh Produce

The Produce Industry Network
  • 5.0 (20)
  • HISTORY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Join John Paap and Patrick Kelly in this podcast series that explores the fascinating and often overlooked history of fresh fruits and vegetables. Each episode offers listeners a unique perspective on how produce has shaped our world, featuring in-depth interviews with top experts and historians, engaging storytelling, and a blend of historical and contemporary perspectives. Whether exploring the journey of grapes through time or the influence of produce in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, this series leaves no stone unturned. Social Channels: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyoffreshproduce/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyoffreshproduce?lang=en Threads: https://www.threads.net/@historyoffreshproduce?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558921896574

  1. 4D AGO

    From Hot Houses to High Tech: The Rise of the Greenhouse

    What does a Roman emperor’s craving for cucumbers have to do with feeding eight billion people? How did a 15th-century Korean cookbook quietly invent heated agriculture centuries before Europe’s glass palaces? And how did Victorian spectacle, world wars, hydroponic ambition, and Dutch engineering transform the greenhouse from aristocratic indulgence into global infrastructure? Join John and Patrick as they trace the extraordinary history of climate control in the service of fresh produce - from Tiberius’s selenite-covered cucumber beds, to the heated ondol systems of the Joseon Dynasty, the imperial glasshouses of Palace of Versailles and Royal Botanic Gardens, and the hydroponic battlefields of the Second World War. Because this is not just a story about architecture. It is a story about anxiety, empire, science, and survival. About humanity’s refusal to let winter - or war, or geography - dictate what ends up on our plates. From Roman villas to vertical farms... this is the history of the greenhouse, and the quiet revolution that changed how the world grows its food. ---------- In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    1h 10m

  2. MAR 3

    Wheels, Plates and Pyramids: Produce & U.S. Dietary Guidelines

    What was the United States government’s first move, when it decided that what Americans ate was a matter of national concern? Why, from the depths of the Civil War to the height of the culture wars, has Washington repeatedly redrawn the nation’s plate - sometimes to fight hunger, sometimes to win wars, sometimes to battle heart disease and obesity? And how did fruits and vegetables move from quiet supporting players to nutritional protagonists, caught between science, industry, and politics? Join John and Patrick as they trace the extraordinary history of U.S. dietary guidelines - from the founding of the United States Department of Agriculture in 1862, through wartime rationing and the “Basic Seven,” to the rise and fall of the Food Pyramid and the fierce debates of today. As public health, agricultural economics, and political ideology collide at the dinner table, one question lingers: when the government tells you what to eat, who (and what) is really being served? ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    1h 4m

  3. FEB 24

    The History of Avocados

    What kind of fruit was designed to be swallowed whole by giant sloths? How did a sacred Mesoamerican tree become the green badge of millennial brunch culture? And how did a humble postman’s backyard seedling end up conquering global agriculture? Join John and Patrick as they trace the astonishing history of the avocado - from the forests of ancient Mexico and the courts of the Maya and Aztec, to the chandeliers of the Alexandria Hotel, the rise of Calavo, and the accidental genius of Rudolph Hass. Along the way: plant explorers, freezes that nearly wiped out an industry, marketing masterstrokes, cartel violence in Michoacán, and the birth of the Super Bowl guacamole ritual. This is not just the story of a fruit. It’s a tale of extinction and survival, empire and branding, crime and cultivation - a relic of the Pleistocene that somehow became the taste of modernity. ---------- In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    1h 30m
  4. Joseph Banks: The End of the Journey, Not the Influence (Part 7)

    FEB 17

    Joseph Banks: The End of the Journey, Not the Influence (Part 7)

    What becomes of a man who spent his life moving plants, people, and power across the globe - when his own body finally begins to fail? How did Joseph Banks face his final years: in pain, in controversy, and yet still at the very center of British science? And why, after four decades at the helm of the Royal Society, did his reputation wither almost as quickly as his health? In this seventh and final episode, John and Patrick follow Banks into his twilight: chairing meetings from a wheelchair, backing Arctic expeditions, sampling three-year-old tinned meat in the name of progress, and making one last pilgrimage to Kew to see a cone bloom after forty years of waiting. As grief, illness, and imperial consequence close in, the question sharpens: was Banks a visionary architect of modern science - or an overbearing relic of an older age? ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    39 min
  5. Joseph Banks: Kew and the Power of Plants (Part 6)

    FEB 10

    Joseph Banks: Kew and the Power of Plants (Part 6)

    What happens when exploration gives way to administration - and adventure turns into power? How did a royal garden become the beating heart of a global botanical empire? And how did Joseph Banks, without leaving London, reshape landscapes, economies, and diets across the world? In this episode, John and Patrick move from the drama of ocean voyages to the quieter - but far more consequential - world of Kew Gardens, where Banks transforms botany into infrastructure, plants into policy, and seeds into instruments of empire. From globe-spanning networks of plant hunters to glasshouses, diplomacy, and even Britain’s first brush with cannabis, this is where Banks stops collecting plants - and starts running the system. ---------- In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    1h 10m
  6. Joseph Banks: The Birth of Australia (Part 5)

    FEB 3

    Joseph Banks: The Birth of Australia (Part 5)

    How did a gentleman botanist turn a vague imperial idea into a functioning colony on the far side of the world? Why did Joseph Banks’s quiet influence matter as much as any act of Parliament or naval broadside? And how did food, plants, and fragile supply lines decide whether Britain’s most audacious colonial experiment would live or die…? Join John and Patrick as Parliament finally commits to Botany Bay, Arthur Phillip sails with the First Fleet, and a penal colony teeters on the edge of starvation. From floating prisons and travelling greenhouses to shipwrecks, rum empires, and botanical lifelines, this is the moment when Banks’s vision collides with reality - on scorched soil, among hostile factions, and under the brutal pressure of survival. This is not just the founding of Australia. It’s the story of how empire is fed - or fails - one seed at a time. ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    1h 13m
  7. Joseph Banks: Fame, Tantrums, and the Seeds of Empire (Part 4)

    JAN 27

    Joseph Banks: Fame, Tantrums, and the Seeds of Empire (Part 4)

    Fresh from fame and flush with ambition, Joseph Banks sets out to remake the world in his own image. But what happens when celebrity curdles into entitlement, when science collides with the Navy, and when one man’s colossal ego derails an imperial voyage before it even leaves port? Join John and Patrick as Banks plans a second South Seas expedition, throws one of the great tantrums of the eighteenth century, and quietly begins his transformation from globe-trotting naturalist into the most powerful scientific fixer in Britain. ---------- In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    1h 8m
  8. Joseph Banks: Death and Survival (Part 3)

    JAN 20

    Joseph Banks: Death and Survival (Part 3)

    What happens when discovery turns to disaster — and survival hangs on a sliver of luck? How close did Joseph Banks come to losing everything he had collected, and his life with it? And how did coral, disease, and chance shape one of the most important scientific voyages in history? Join John and Patrick as the Endeavour smashes onto the Great Barrier Reef, limps into Batavia, and is transformed from a ship of discovery into a floating hospital - a brutal reminder that Banks’s botanical triumphs were forged on the very edge of catastrophe. ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! Share this episode with your friendsGive a 5-star ratingWrite a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here 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

    59 min
See All (133)

5
out of 5
20 Ratings

About

Join John Paap and Patrick Kelly in this podcast series that explores the fascinating and often overlooked history of fresh fruits and vegetables. Each episode offers listeners a unique perspective on how produce has shaped our world, featuring in-depth interviews with top experts and historians, engaging storytelling, and a blend of historical and contemporary perspectives. Whether exploring the journey of grapes through time or the influence of produce in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, this series leaves no stone unturned. Social Channels: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyoffreshproduce/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyoffreshproduce?lang=en Threads: https://www.threads.net/@historyoffreshproduce?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558921896574

Information

  • Creator
    The Produce Industry Network
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    133
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 The Produce Industry Network
  • Show Website
    The History of Fresh Produce

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