Now is the time to freeze strawberries – 5 important instructions

Before you go shopping for strawberries, it’s a good idea to check the condition of the freezer and make sure that there are no last year’s berries left in the freezer. Now is a good time to remember how many berries were used last winter and plan the appropriate amount to freeze accordingly.

5 tips for freezing

1. After you have bought the strawberries, pick them as soon as possible, preferably on the same day, and immediately transfer them to freezer boxes.

2. Boxes are much more convenient for freezing strawberries than freezer bags, because the strawberries release a lot of juice when the berries melt.

3. You can put the strawberries in the boxes whole, but if you want to save space, slice the strawberries so that more berries can fit in one box.

4. Domestic strawberries do not need and should not be rinsed before freezing. If you wish, you can sprinkle a little sugar on top of the berries, a small amount is enough, as it improves shelf life. You can do without sugar.

5. Close the lids tightly and transfer the boxes to the freezer.

The canning boom hit the Finns

In addition to freezing strawberries, other types of preservation are now trendy. Prisma’s sales data reveals that sales of various food preservation systems, such as glass bottles and jars and plastic boxes, have grown considerably.

– This shows relatively exceptional growth for these categories. We have noticed that last year people became more and more interested in self-sufficiency and, of course, ecology. Many people certainly started growing vegetables and berries, for example, on their own balcony last summer and autumn. Now we want to make sure that we get the most out of these, says Prisma’s home sales manager Matti Viitanen in the bulletin.

According to Viitanen, summer weather also affects people’s preservation.

– When the mercury hits the heat readings, we can see a clear spike in the sales of products intended for preserving and juicing berries. This category has also grown by eight percent since the beginning of the year, but the biggest sales happen in the summer heat. And that in itself is no wonder, because Finland is a good berry country, where pure natural foods are available to everyone. This is also evidenced by the fact that various berry pickers have been consistently on the list of best-selling products in recent years.