Punnet

For the genetics diagram, see Punnett square.

Empty punnets

A punnet is a small box or square basket for the gathering, transport and sale of fruit and vegetables, typically for small berries susceptible to bruising, spoiling and squashing that are therefore best kept in small rigid containers. The word is largely confined to Commonwealth countries (but not Canada) and is of uncertain origin, but is thought to be a diminutive of "pun", a British dialect word for pound, from the days in which such containers were used as a unit of measurement. The British Dictionary of National Biography, parenthetically in its entry for geneticist R.C. Punnett (1875–1967), credits "a strawberry growing ancestor [who] devised the wooden basket known as a ‘punnet’".

Description

In the late eighteenth century strawberries and some soft fruit were sold in pottles; conical woodchip baskets. The pottle used in England and Scotland at that time contained nominally, one Scottish pint. They were stacked, fifty or sixy together, into square hampers for transport to the market placed upon a woman's head, on a small cushion and over longer distances in a light carriage or frame work hung on springs.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Horticultural Society of London | title=Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London VI | publication-date=1826 | page=513 | publisher=The Society | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11993120 }}</ref>

The Saturday Magazine in 1834 records 'pottle baskets' being made by women and children in their homes for six pence a dozen by steeping the cut wood in water, and splitting it into strips of dimensions needed for each part of the basket. The most skilful weavers formed the upright supports of the basket, fixing them in their place by weaving the bottom part. Children wove the sids with pliable strips of fir or willow.

Pottles were replaced in the mid-1800s by the more practical rectangular punnet. The terms 'pottle' and 'punnet' were often used interchangeably. As reported in an 1879 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, the conical pottle had given way to the punnet, being mainly manufactured in Brentford of deal, or the more preferred willow, by hundreds of women and children.

In North America commercial strawberry culture began around 1820 and were packed in the same manner as that approved by English gardeners; in 1821 it was recommenced that Massachusetts strawberry growers carry berries to the Boston markets in "pottles, that is, in inverted cones of basket work.”<ref>Memoirs of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society VI 1821</ref> The English punnet used in the strawberry trade of New York City between 1815 and 1850 was a round shallow basket of woven wickerwork without handles. A handled punnet became more popular in the New York market, as related in the Proceedings of the New Jersey Horticultural Society by "C. W." of Idell:<ref>Proceedings of the New Jersey Horticultural Society 1877 p.26 cited in {{Citation | author1=Fletcher, S. W | title=The strawberry in North America : history, origin, botany, and breeding | publication-date=1917 | publisher=Macmillan | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/13406024 }}</ref>

The first strawberries marketed in New York were wild ones from Bergen County, N. J. The negroes there the first to pick this fruit for the New York market and invented those quaint oId fashioned splint baskets with handles. The baskets were strung on poles and thus peddled through the city.

A 1903 work describes the construction of punnets;

"Strawberry punnets or baskets as used by fruiterers are made of thin strips of wood, well soaked before use. The bottom and uprights are comprised of six pieces of 1/16” wood; the bottom and side pieces may be of ash and the lacings, which are 1/32” thick and 1” wide, may be of pine."

By 1969 punnets in the UK were being made out of thinly lathed poplar wood or lath using a semi-mechanical system. While factory workers still had to interlace the laths, metal staples were used to fix the strips.

Contemporary punnets are generally made of semi-rigid, transparent, lightweight Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with lockable lids and vents. Their advantage is that they permit visual examination by the consumer but discourage physical contact with the merchandise at point of sale.. Increasingly moulded pulp and corrugated fiberboard are being used as they are perceived to be more sustainable materials. Decorative punnets are often made of felt and seen in flower and craft arrangements.