The Fountain of Youth for Your Produce
How Apeel Sciences is redefining perishability
It pains me to throw out a potato that’s gone mushy or a box of strawberries that are starting to look more like the lint from my dryer.
As an avid home cook, I do a pretty good job of keeping track of what I take home from the grocery store. But I’m human too, and there are days when I would rather opt for takeout which means the tomatoes and carrots are forgotten, relished to a slow demise of oxidation and dehydration in the crisper of my fridge.
Finding the byproducts of my neglect is always slightly nightmarish. I admit there are times when I know the items are already too far gone, but I let them linger longer than I should. It’s not like the fruit and vegetables will rise from their graves to haunt me — although the zombie bread (“the unbread”) of Overcooked 2 come pretty close. It’s just that having to throw away expired food is like putting the last nail in the coffin, and comes with a dread I’d rather push off. It’s an unwillingness to take responsibility for having neglected my beautiful produce, handpicked from the local farmer’s market where I’d excitedly told the grower their heirloom tomatoes would go beautifully in my quiche.
What I really need is some land of my own so that I can start composting and feel a little less guilty about tossing out the bounty of mother nature that is no longer humanly edible. In the meantime, I’ll just have to be better about fridge inventory and rearranging produce so that what’s oldest is always in view.
But is changing human behavior really the only way to minimize the amount of food waste humans are bound to produce?
Not according to Apeel Sciences.
James Rogers, CEO of Apeel Sciences, a biotechnology company founded in 2012 whose tagline is “Food Gone Good”, aims to extend the shelf-life of your produce. This is done through the application of a tasteless, odorless, invisible, plant-based compound to the exteriors of fruits and vegetables which keeps water in and keeps air out. In doing so, this reinforced peel slows the oxidation process, allowing fruit and vegetables to last up to 2x as long as their non-Apeel counterparts. This means you get more time to enjoy your avocados before they’ve browned to the point of no return and that all the water, light and resources that went into creating Mother Nature’s bounty is less likely to be wasted.
By reducing the amount of refrigeration needed to preserve our produce, we reduce the carbon footprint of our food supply chain.
The implications of longer-lasting fruits and vegetables are huge. It’s more than just about preserving your fruits and vegetables so that you can neglect them for longer (which you should absolutely not do). Rather, it’s about giving more people access to fresh fruit and vegetables. Areas once considered too far could now be included in the food supply chain simply because the reinforced produce is capable of withstanding longer transportation times from distributor to retailer. Additionally, produce whose peel has been fortified may not need the climate-controlled environments typically needed for transport. By reducing the amount of refrigeration needed to preserve our produce, we reduce the carbon footprint of our food supply chain.
I love that Apeel’s mission prioritizes the planet, not the paycheck. Oprah Winfrey and Katy Perry, the latest additions to their investor list, love them too.
Today, you can find Apeel-reinforced apples, asparagus, avocados, cucumbers, limes in stores. To see what’s available near you, use their handy Apeel produce finder. I can’t wait to see what lies ahead for this burgeoning brand working to redefine the produce supply chain. For now, you can bet I’ll be hitting up my local grocery store for some Apeel avocados — to be mashed into some fresh guac of course!
