It's a pretty widely studied artifact of mass retail that appearance was valued over taste, because appearance is immediately obvious while taste must be remembered and most consumers don't. In other words, it's immediately obvious what produce looks good, while knowing what produce tastes good requires time and attention. Most people don't really remember the difference between varieties of apples, for example, which are currently undergoing a bit of a renaissance as breeders have discovered the value of branding and marketing campaigns similar to those used for manufactured goods. The general perception is that this trend is starting to go away only now, as a largely internet driven food culture has emerged that values unusual varieties.

Moreover, for the retailer themselves, durability and shelf life is perhaps the single most important property in today's long supply chains, because produce is subject to rough handling and consumers absolutely do not purchase bruised fruit or wilted greens. Unfortunately it often runs opposite to other metrics of quality for produce.

> because appearance is immediately obvious while taste must be remembered and most consumers don't.

I find this hard to believe. Foods and taste is one of the most common experiences people have and converse about. Your last paragraph is just supporting that people might not be willing or able to spend the extra money for the tastiest fruits and vegetables.

Taste doesn’t matter in the majority of the fruit and vegetable market because it is not perceivable at the time of purchase.

Unless people are generally more forgetful than me, they can probably remember that the red delicious or gala apple they bought last week tastes worse than a honey crisp or cosmic crisp or whatever.

People might be choosing less tasty fruits and vegetables because they are cheaper, but they are not ignoring tastier ones because they do not care about taste.

A huge amount of the marketplace just thinks "apple" and doesn't note the variety.

A lot of us pay attention now, but did my mom pay so much attention to varietal when shopping? I don't think so.

I thought I hated apples growing up. The only thing my mom bought was a red delicious. Later in life I tried a honeycrisp and wow! Turns out I actually love apples.

There is no choice they simply aren’t available because they don’t transport or store well

Right, so it is too expensive to have those fruits flown in, not that people care about looks over taste.

Little known fact but mass-agriculture varieties of fruits and vegetables often have far less nutrition than heirloom varieties.

This is a myth. They usually taste worse, because they've been bred to grow to a uniform size, to be pretty, and to have a long shelf-life.

As far as nutrition is concerned, it only seems this way because they're pumped full of water and end up tasting just like bags of mildly tomato flavoured water.

If you take a heirloom variety and a mass-produced hybrid variety and grow them in the same good soil in full sun, their nutritional value should be about the same.

it should be, but it is not the way it works. The same happens with the tomato.

Homegrown tomatoes and tomatoes from the supermarket are two totally different fruits. They don’t even taste the same.

Same goes with strawberries and probably a lot of things.

I tasted heirloom tomatoes and they weren’t special