"baby pineapple" news and stories

A few years ago I was in South Africa and stopped by the local Woolworths. Woolworths in South Africa is not the same as the US stores. It is a high end department store affiliated to Marks and Spencer in the United Kingdom, with an amazing food store inside. One of the first things I saw were these tiny little pineapples the size of large baseballs. I bought a dozen since they were both inexpensive by local rates, and with the incredible exchange rate of dollars for rand they cost me pennies. They were the most amazing pineapples I ever tasted. Sweet, but even more so, full of intense pineapple flavor. I tried to ration them out when I got back onto my ship but when I offered tastes to a few of my friends the matter was settled. They were gone within hours of leaving port. They were so good I dreamed about them off and on for weeks. When I eventually got back home to the US a few months later I did some research and found out they were the Queen Victoria breed and that until recently they couldn't be found outside South Africa, basically because they went bad so fast. Further reading told me that a few years ago they started shipping them to Europe upon occasion but they were very rare.