Apples That Don’t Turn Brown
-
Apples that never go brown could be on sale as early as 2014.
A Canadian biotech company has filed a request with food regulators to start selling two varieties it claims will stay fresh for weeks on end.
Okanagan Specialty Fruits said the genetically modified apples have had the gene responsible for browning ‘silenced’, meaning they remain green or red indefinitely.
The firm hopes that it will get approval in the U.S. and Canada within a year and will start planting trees - with the fruit being sold the year afterwards.
Its founder and grower Neal Carter said it wanted approval for two varieties, its ‘arctic granny’ and ‘arctic golden’ apples.
They are different from apples like Empires in that even if their white flesh is exposed, they will not start to brown and can be left like that for weeks.
Mr Carter said that GM apples would benefit growers as they would not have to throw away brown or bruised fruit and there will be more good quality apples.
He also said that apples would not need to need to be chemically treated before being processed for food and that juice will be clearer.
Mr Carter said: ‘At the end of the day, it’s just a very nice apple that doesn’t go brown.’
Fruit growers in Canada however have attacked Okanagan and said that consumers will be confused about what kind of fruit hey are buying.
Kirpal Boparai, president of the British Columbia Fruit Growers’ Association, said: ‘These will drive the prices of other apples down’.
Lana Popham of the New Democratic Party has gone so far as to start a petition against Okanagan’s arctic variety which has 2,000 signatures.
She said: ‘The certified organic growers could potentially lose their organic status, because of the ability for pollen to be transferred from genetically modified apple trees to certified organic apple trees.
‘That’s one of the strong points around certified organic production, is that there are no genetically modified organisms.’
