These aren’t Granny’s Smiths: Why do we have more varieties of apples than ever before?

The apple game has changed right under our 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, from Cosmic Crisps to SweeTangos. When Brian Frange learned of this, he had a stroke.

“A world of tastes and flavors opened up to me and I realized I had been eating garbage apples my whole life,” said the apple enthusiast, comedian and founder of an apple ranking website. Cost of Living.

“I was angry that people were serving me Red Delicious and Granny Smiths when there were other apples like SweetTangos that weren’t even the same fruit.”

SweeTango is one of many new apple varieties hitting the market that has completely changed what some people believe apples should taste like. Experts say this apple renaissance is taking hold everywhere in the supermarket.

big apple

If every first bite of an apple was the best bite, you’d expect David Bedford’s first bite of Honeycrisp to change the world. It was, but it was also confusing.

“It was so different that I had a moment of hesitation,” said Bedford, a University of Minnesota horticulturist who was responsible for the discovery of Honeycrisp, which was later released in 1991.

“When you encounter something that is so different from normal, even if it is good, it is not always obvious that it is good at the time because it is so far outside of normal.”

Bedford is part of a team growing new apple varieties. After considering the newly discovered variety, planted decades ago, for several weeks, he concluded that it could be successful.

Thus, the University of Minnesota patented the apple variety, making it one of the first apples to have this distinction, along with Australia’s Pink Lady, and led to the apple varieties becoming trademarked.

But Honeycrisp didn’t become an overnight success. Those who tried it liked it, but grocery stores were not very keen on adding a new apple to their shelves.

“The dominant apples were Red Delicious and Golden Delicious, and McIntosh was definitely a part of the East Coast and Canadian market.”

“Most of the grocery stores weren’t interested in new apples. ‘We have three apples,’ they said. ‘What more do we really need?'”

Moreover, it is harder to grow and usually produces a smaller crop. But when grocers realized that people were willing to pay a higher price for these apples, Honeycrisp began to gain momentum.

People wanted Honeycrisps, and breeders began looking for ways to build on that success. Now Honeycrisp’s genetics are at the heart of many apples on shelves.

“I would say probably half of the new varieties coming to market in the U.S. and Canada as well are the Honeycrisp lineage,” Bedford said.

WATCH | Apple growers are finding new ways to sell local fruit:

Apple growers find new ways to sell local fruit

A fruit market in West Kelowna is extending its selling season due to the closure of the BC Tree Fruit Cooperative. Jennay Oliver, owner and operator of Paynter Fruit Market, purchased approximately 32,000 kilograms of apples to help local producers and make purchasing local fruit easier in her community.

Apples to apples

For Frange, Honeycrisp ranks quite high. He should know that he listed dozens of apple varieties. Apple Rankings on its website.

At the top is SweeTango, which Frange describes as the “Holy Grail” with a score of 97 out of 100. Just below is Honeycrisp, followed closely by the Kanzi variety.

But there are some bad apples too. And Frange doesn’t mince words when it comes to the apples he doesn’t like.

“We were all indoctrinated in the apple by Red Delicious. It’s the apple you dream of giving to a teacher when you like it,” Frange said.

“I think you have to give it to them when you hate them, because that’s what I call coffee ground in a leather glove. It’s a grainy, floury disgrace.”

Then there is the McIntosh, first grown in Upper Canada in 1811 before it was known as Ontario.

“I call McIntosh a Canadian sealskin because his skin is so thick it’s very difficult to penetrate the protective coat he wears,” Frange said.

He knows that his opinions about apples are just his own, and that McIntosh has many fans, even if he’s not one of them. But older apple varieties like Red Delicious can change over time, he says. A few generations later, even his favorite SweeTango might not be so sweet.

“Sometimes I get hateful messages cursing my name because they say, ‘This isn’t the best apple I’ve ever had. This feels a little floury.’ “I said, ‘You can blame the Big Apple for spreading it too far,'” Frange said.

Bedford says this is something that affects all apple varieties. As variety becomes more popular, more is produced, and with it, consistency decreases.

“They eventually collapse under their own popularity,” he said.

“They become so popular that more people plant them, quality control drops and eventually the variety disappears.”

The effect of new apples

The range of varieties is specific to apples, says Karina Gallardo, an agricultural economist at Washington State University. People can name and point to these different varieties. In short, there is brand awareness.

“This is different from other fruits, right? We don’t see this in peaches, table grapes or blueberries,” Gallardo said.

But Lenore Newman says the desire for diversity is starting to spread beyond apples. Newman, director of the Institute of Food and Agriculture at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C., says there are new varieties of different fruits and vegetables, such as oranges and carrots.

“Now, if you go to some high-end grocery stores, you get Cara Cara oranges or Heirloom oranges,” Newman said.

He says this is thanks in part to celebrity chefs and cooking shows featuring seasonal varieties from other parts of the world, as well as improvements in the farming system.

Although prices are higher for some new apple varieties, Frange does not mind this. Even if the price is a little higher, he thinks a good apple is always worth it no matter how you slice it.

“This is the difference between eating pizza from New York City and eating pizza from a hospital cafeteria in rural Utah,” Frange said.

“Let me put this for you in Canadian terms: It’s the difference between eating poutine straight from Montreal and eating poutine at a roadside stall in the United States.”