You often hear in history how fruits such as pineapples and bananas (seen as an exotic foreign produce in places such as Britain) were transported back to the country for people, often wealthy or influential, to try. How did such fruits last the months long voyages from colonies back to the empire’s capital without modern day refrigeration/freezing?
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Most of the food was not shipped over seas during the colonial days. They hunted, gathered and grew what they could.
Fresh fruit in a large variety at stores is a modern phenomenon, back then they had what could be grown here. Apples, Pears and Quince were very popular.
EtA The question was changed while I was replying.
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The hold of a wooden ship is quite cool to cold even in the South Pacific. This helped and most fruits were picked before fully ripe. Pineapples don’t ripen much after picking so it was all about keeping them insulated and dry.
Besides what a lot of people already said (picking early, losing a lot in the process, iceboxes, greenhouses, etc.), many of those fruits were transplanted to places with tropical weather that are closer to Europe than the colonies, for example, the Canary Islands – they still grow A LOT of bananas to this day
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I’m not an expert but part of it was the development of infrastructure. The United Fruit Company was as much a logistics and infrastructure company as it was a fruit co, building railways, roads and ports, in places like Colombia, as well as creating The Great White fleet of vessels that were painted white to reflect the sun in order to protect their cargo from the heat of the sun.
Gastropod has a wonderful episode on this topic: [Meet the Man Who Found, Finagled, and Ferried Home the Foods We Eat Today](https://gastropod.com/meet-the-man-who-found-finagled-and-ferried-home-the-foods-we-eat-today/). They talk about David Fairchild who brought many fruits (kale, mango, peaches, dates, grapes, lemons) to the United States back in the early days.
The would dig up the trees, root ball and all, and transport it alive. Obviously for larger treed fruits they would take them as saplings.
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