That Non-Browning Apple Is Nothing New

Soon, the US will add a new variety to its already thousands-strong roster of domestically grown apples. Like the fruit you're used to, it's crisp, and round, and grows on trees. But there's one thing that's very different about this apple: when you cut into it, it doesn't brown, even after being exposed to the air. The other quality that sets this apple apart from its peers? It's the first genetically modified type to hit the American market.

On Friday, Canadian developer Okanagan Specialty Fruits announced that it had received USDA approval to begin planting Arctic Apple trees. The non-browning apples should hit US supermarkets in small quantities beginning in 2016.

We've been following the Arctic Apple since last March, when Okanagan first unveiled its new product, which they hope will appeal to picky consumers as well as fast-food restaurants that serve pre-sliced apples. At that time, apple growers were enraged at the thought of the Arctic Apple joining their ranks, citing the fear that the already-struggling US apple export market would be dealt a fatal blow by a GM apple. The EU—with its strict anti-GMO import policies—would be unlikely to accept the zany no-brown apples, New York Apple Association member Jim Allen worried.

When news of the USDA's approval of Arctic Apples broke last week, we decided to reach out to apple historian Tom Burford for his thoughts on the futuristic apple. Basically, he told us, he's not impressed.

"The Arctic Apple leaves me cold," Burford said. (You can always depend on Tom for an eminently quotable zinger.)

First and foremost, Burford pointed out, non-browning apples—or at least low-browning apples—are nothing new, and there's absolutely no reason to turn to GM techniques to produce them.

"We already have slow-oxidizing varieties of apples," Burford said, "the most well known of which is the Ginger Gold. But there are others, as well."

Importantly, he said, all of these apple types are totally natural. They contain less of the enzyme that causes the fruit to brown—no need to splice in an antibiotic gene, as Okanagan does.

"With this apple, it's not like 'Eureka!' You're suddenly gonna be subjected to something you've never seen before," Burford explained.

In fact, Burford told us, he regularly uses these types of apples when preparing to host his frequent dinner parties, incorporating them into what he calls his "Late Guest Salad" so that he doesn't have to worry how long the apples sit out: they only turn a little brown, and his guests are none the wiser.

"With this salad on the table, it's fashionable to be late," he said.

Burford doesn't think that the average apple eater is so concerned about a little browning on her fruit, anyway.

"If you were to blindfold someone, and have them try the Arctic Apple alongside a conventional apple, they wouldn't even be able to bring up the issue of, 'Well, that apple tastes brown.'"

As far as Burford sees it, Okanagan had one goal in mind when developing the Arctic Apple: profit.

"They will market the daylights out of it," he said. But he's not so sure that the company's bet that consumers will seek out a non-browning apple will pay off. "This was a boardroom decision. During my long career of studying apples, I've become resigned to all the floundering around," he said of the industry's sometimes fruitless—pun intended—experimentations with different varietals. "If it wasn't this, then it would have been something else."

As for the whole GM issue, Burford is more or less unphased by it, and said that the debate tends to become "overwrought."

"It's just a fact that we will have to genetically modify foods to provide nourishment for growing population," he said.

It's possible, though, that the Arctic Apple's GM status will, in fact, negatively impact its potential for export overseas. If the EU doesn't even want to accept American apples that are waxed for shininess, it's unlikely to thrill to the idea of an antibiotic-laced Franken-apple. And China—which last month reached a new agreement with the USDA to increase its imports of US apples by about 10 percent—until recently was steadfast in its refusal to import American GM corn, a decision that US growers claim cost them about $6 billion in losses in 2013. China, too, might frown upon the Arctic Apple.

According to Buford, though, the economics of the Arctic Apple might not end up mattering too much: he sees the fruit as a fad that's likely to lack staying power.

"It will probably be forgotten after so long," he said.