North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Betty Mayfield <bmayfield@opusnet.com>]

Rivka,

A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit an apple-packing 
warehouse near Yakima, Washington, in the heart of apple country.

They had a machine that graded and sorted apples by color - how much 
red they had. Big stores like Safeway would order a certain 
percentage of red, and apples meeting it were diverted into that 
store's shipment. There was no consideration of flavor, so apparently 
the stores did not care.

I can't really blame the farmers because they have to sell apples to 
make a living, but I do blame the stores for not making an effort to 
educate consumers.

Betty Mayfield
Oregon

At 06:24 PM 4/14/2008, you wrote:

> <snip>


> > is the consumer willing to accept a less flavorful
> > apple?  Maybe some will, but I suspect most won't.
>
> Considering that the competition in the grocery store is mostly from 
> entirely insipid strains of Red and Golden Delicious, and 
> considering the flavor or rather lack of it of most fruit in most 
> grocery stores, I think "the consumer" is entirely willing to accept 
> tasteless fruit. The challenge is in getting most people to find out 
> what good fruit tastes like.
>
> I have had some very flavorful organic apples -- I'm sorry, I'm bad 
> at names on anything I don't grow myself, and can't recall what they were.
>
> <snip>