Berries go into the cart last and into the fridge first. Time spent warm is never recovered: a punnet loses more life in a couple of hours in a warm car than in a full day in a good fridge. Everything else you do is downstream of that one habit.
What to check
Leave them in the vented box they came in. It is designed for this: rigid so nothing gets crushed, vented so moisture and respiration heat escape.
Keep them dry and unwashed until the moment you eat them. Moisture is what starts mold, so washing the whole box on the day you buy it is the fastest way to lose it.
Avoidthe fridge door. It cycles through a temperature swing every time the door opens, and berries feel it. Strawberries in particular want the coldest spot short of freezing, usually the back of a shelf.
Pick out any soft or moldy berry as soon as you get home. One goes and the rest follow quickly.
Noteberries want dry and cold while leafy greens want damp and cold. That is not a contradiction. Leaves fail by wilting and berries fail by molding, so each is stored against the way it actually goes wrong.
Common mistakedecanting them into a sealed tub. Airtight traps damp against the fruit and turns a good box in a day.
If they are not perfect: on day three, going soft but still clean, freeze them on a tray or cook them down. Freeze before they mold, not after. Almost nobody does this, and it is where most berry money is lost.
Written by the team behind RIPE, a free app that reads a photo of the whole produce pile and rings the ripest ones. Every cue above is one you can check with your own hands, and it all works with no app at all.