These aren't your Granny's Smiths: Why we have more apple varieties than ever before
Varieties like SweeTango and Cosmic Crisp have people willing to pay a premium for apples
The apple game has changed, right under our very apple tree. It's no longer just one red and one green variety filling the produce aisle.
There are now more apple options than ever before, from Cosmic Crisps to SweeTangos. And when Brian Frange found out, he was apoplectic.
"A whole world of tastes and flavours were opened up to me, and I realized that I had been eating trash apples my entire life," the apple enthusiast, comedian and founder of an apple ranking website told Cost of Living.
"I was furious that people were serving me Red Delicious and Granny Smith when there were other apples like SweeTangos out there that were basically not even the same fruit."
The SweeTango is one of many new apple varieties that have burst onto the market, completely changing what some people believe apples should taste like. And this apple renaissance is having its impact throughout the supermarket, experts say.
The big apple
If every first bite of an apple is the best bite, you'd only expect David Bedford's bite of the first-ever Honeycrisp to be world-changing. And it was, but it was also confusing.
"It was so different that I had a moment of uncertainty," said Bedford, a horticulturist at the University of Minnesota and the one responsible for discovering the Honeycrisp, which was later put on the market in 1991.
"When you come across something that is so different than normal, even if it's good, it's not always obvious at that moment that it's good because it's so far out of the realm of normal."
Bedford is part of a team that breeds new apple varieties. After a few weeks of mulling on the newly discovered variety, planted decades earlier, he came to the conclusion that it could be a hit.
So the University of Minnesota had the apple variety patented, making it one of the first apples to have that distinction, along with the Pink Lady from Australia, and led to apple varieties being trademarked.
But the Honeycrisp wasn't an overnight success. People who tried it liked it, but grocers weren't too keen on adding a new apple to their shelves.
"The dominant apples were Red Delicious and Golden Delicious, and McIntosh was part of the East Coast and the Canadian market for sure," he
"The grocers for the most part weren't interested in new apples. 'We've got three,' they said. 'What more do we really need?'"
On top of that, it is harder to grow and often yields a smaller crop. But when grocers realized people were willing to pay a higher price for these apples, the Honeycrisp started to gain momentum.
People wanted Honeycrisps, and growers started looking at ways to build on its success. Now, the Honeycrisp's genetics are at the core of many apples on shelves.
"I would say in the U.S., and I would say Canada as well, that probably about half of the new varieties that are coming to market now are Honeycrisp progeny," said Bedford.
Apple to apples
For Frange, the Honeycrisp ranks pretty high. He should know, he's ranked dozens of apple varieties on his website, Apple Rankings.
At the very top, with a score of 97 out of 100, is the SweeTango, which Frange describes as the "Holy Grail." Just below it sits Honeycrisp, followed closely by the Kanzi variety.
But there are some bad apples too. And for those apples he dislikes, Frange doesn't mince words.
"We were all indoctrinated into apples by the Red Delicious.… That's the apple you imagine giving to a teacher when you like them," said Frange.
"I think you should give it to them when you hate them because I call it coffee grinds in a leather glove. It's a grainy, mealy disgrace."
And then there's the McIntosh, first grown in Upper Canada in 1811, before it was known as Ontario.
"I call the McIntosh the sealskin Canadian let down because its skin is so thick, it's difficult to pierce through its protective parka of a coat that it wears," said Frange.
He knows his opinions on apples are just his opinion, and that the McIntosh has a lot of fans, even if he's not one of them. But, he says, older varieties of apples, like the Red Delicious, can end up changing over time. After a few generations even his favourite, the SweeTango, may not be quite as sweet.
"Sometimes I receive hate-filled messages cursing my name because they say, 'Well, this isn't the best apple I've ever had. This feels a little mealy.' And I said, 'Well, you can blame Big Apple for spreading out this apple too far,'" Frange said.
Bedford says this is something that impacts all apple varieties. As a variety becomes popular, it becomes highly produced, and with that comes a decline in consistency.
"They eventually kind of collapse under their own popularity," he said.
"They become so popular, more people plant them, quality control goes down and eventually the variety just kind of fades away."
The impact of new apples
Karina Gallardo, a Washington State University agricultural economist, says the range of varieties is unique to apples. People can name and point out these different varieties. In short, they have brand awareness.
"This is different from other fruits, right? We don't see this in peaches, or in table grapes or in blueberries," said Gallardo.
But Lenore Newman says that the desire for variety has started to spread beyond just apples. Newman, the director of the Food and Agricultural Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C., says there are new types of different fruits and veggies, such as oranges and carrots.
"Now, if you go into some of the higher-end grocery stores, you'll get a Cara Cara orange or an Heirloom orange," said Newman.
She says that's thanks, in part, to celebrity chefs and cooking shows showing seasonal varieties from other parts of the world, as well as improvements to the agricultural system.
Even though prices are higher for some new apple varieties, Frange doesn't mind. He feels that whatever way you slice it, a good apple is always going to be worth it — even if the price is a little higher.
"It's the difference between eating pizza from New York City and eating pizza from a cafeteria in a hospital in rural Utah," said Frange.
"Let me let me put that in Canadian terms for you: It's the difference between eating poutine straight from Montreal and having poutine at a roadside stop in the United States."
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