Take a summer road trip across the U.S., and you’ll have the opportunity to attend one common event held in nearly every state: a strawberry festival. It’s true—communities in 43 out of 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., host at least one strawberry festival, according to PickYourOwn.org, with the majority of those states actually having too many strawberry festivals to list on the site’s main 2024 strawberry festivals page.

The obvious demand supporting these festivals clearly reflects the immense popularity of the strawberry. On average, Americans consume just under 8 pounds of strawberries per person per year. In fact, 94% of U.S. households consume strawberries, and the U.S. is the second-largest producer of the fruit worldwide, just behind China...