Jackfruit

Jackfruit is something we didn't have when I was a child - like computers and mobile telephones and ball-point pens and Saturdays. I first heard of it this year and was convinced that it was made-up and someone was pulling my leg. Now I've actually seen it for sale in a national supermarket chain I must assume that it really exists (or it is all a figment of my addled brain). 

When I was young we only had about three different fruits and we got by, why do we need people to invent new fruits? Can't they invent actual useful things like the flying cars we were promised, or hoverboards? Messing about making new fruits just to fill the shelves at Sainsbury's......