By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

SUMMERLAND, British Columbia — Arctic apples went on sale in Midwest stores in November, as 10-ounce bags of fresh, preservative-free slices. What makes them unique is that you can bite them, slice them, bruise them – and they won’t turn brown.

Okanagan Specialty Fruits, Inc. (OSF), a small agricultural biotechnology company based in Summerland, British Columbia, developed the apples. Apple sales have been flat to declining for years, and the Canadian company wanted to reverse that trend, said Neal Carter, president and founder of OSF, by email.

“Over the past few decades, we have seen consumers steadily demand more and more convenience, such as ‘baby’ carrots, which now make up two-thirds of U.S. carrot sales,” Carter said. “Over the same time frame, however, we have seen obesity rates rise while per capita apple consumption has declined.”

An advantage of non-browning apples is the significant role they can play in reducing food waste, Carter said. Estimates suggest that 40 percent of apples grown are wasted, with a large percentage of that due to superficial browning.

Apples typically brown because of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase (PPO), said Peter Hirst, a professor of horticulture at Purdue University. OSF uses the apples’ own genes to “silence” the production of PPO.

“One of the big applications is sliced apples in school lunches, and things like that,” he said. “So you can slice your kid’s apple for their lunchbox in the morning and by the time the kids eat them, they’re still white, and hopefully the kids will actually eat their apples.”

While this is a minor genetic change, Carter said, Arctic apples are likely the most tested apple on the planet. “We have well over a decade of real-world experience since Arctic apple field trials were first planted in 2003, and have successfully satisfied years of regulatory requirements with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and additional regulatory bodies in Canada.

“All the evidence on Arctic varieties has shown they’re just as safe as any other apple on the market,” he added.

However, Amalie Lipstreu, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Assoc. (OEFFA) policy program coordinator, has questions. There is a trend with consumers of wanting more transparency in their food; plus, they want that food produced closer to home and free of chemical inputs, she said.

“From that angle, the Arctic apple flies in the face of transparency, in that it will not be clearly labeled as a genetically engineered product,” she explained. “It is engineered to travel long distances without consumers maybe being able to tell how old that product is. From a freshness, even from a consumer, perspective, one question is, how nutritional is it if it is old?”

Lipstreu also has concerns about the USDA’s and EPA’s testing methods, saying many organizations believe they need to be updated. Tests need to look beyond the target application, considering things such as the effect on pollinators.

Concerning genetically modified foods, Hirst responded that most of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States are GMO, and every time someone drinks a Coke it has some high-fructose corn syrup in it – which came from GMO corn.

“I don’t see too many people worried about that,” he said. “It is more of an emotional issue rather than an actual issue. There remains to be seen how the market will react to this.”

If consumers don’t wish to buy GMO foods, that is their choice, Carter said. But those who are interested in planting or purchasing such foods are entitled to their choice as well. “We have found that many consumers are not aware that essentially every reputable scientific body that has studied GMOs has concluded they are just as safe as other food on the market,” he said.

“Perhaps the most recent and notable is that, after an exhaustive study, National Academies of Sciences concluded last year that there is ‘no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between current commercially available genetically engineered crops and conventionally bred crops.’”