The Cosmic Crisp – a new super-sweet variety of apple that can reportedly last longer than a year in the refrigerator – is expected to hit grocery stores in the US this week.
The Cosmic Crisp’s release comes after two decades of development and some three years of planting apple trees. Washington state farmers have exclusive growing rights for one decade, according to local media outlet KIMA.
The apple, developed by Washington State University’s fruit tree breeding program and first cultivated in 1997, purports to have a “remarkably firm and crisp texture” and be “surprisingly sweet, making it an excellent eating apple”, according to its website. The launch has reportedly cost $10m.
The fruit, a cross between the Enterprise and Honeycrisp apple varieties, was bred to feature “naturally higher levels of acidity and sugar,” so much so that one can use less sugar while baking, researchers claim.
They also say that it’s “naturally slow to brown when cut and maintains its texture and flavor in storage for more than a year”.
Its name stems from the tiny bright dots on the apple’s otherwise darker red skin. Tasters said the flecks reminded them of “outer space and the cosmos,” Cosmic Crisp’s website noted.
Just over 450,000 40lb boxes of the Cosmic Crisp crop were expected to be shipped to retailers across the US on Sunday, according to the Spokane-based Spokesman-Review. The producers hope the shipments will grow to 2.1m boxes in 2020. For those who can’t wait for their local grocery store to stock them, four apples were retailing for $39 online over the weekend.
The initial 600,000 Cosmic Crisp trees were sold to farmers in 2017, researchers reportedly said. Since then, more than 10m Cosmic Crisp trees were planted, Kate Evans, who heads the university’s Pome Fruit Breeding Program, told the Spokesman-Review.
Asked for comment on the apple’s release, Evans told The Guardian in an email it’s “very exciting to finally see it available for consumers.”
Addressing skepticism about the apple, Evans emphasized that Cosmic Crisp was not made through genetic modification but instead, a technique named “cross-hybridization”.
Evans said the idea of crossing the two varieties was to make an apple that featured both Enterprise’s resistance to browning and disease and Honeycrisp’s sweet flavour.
Washington is the top apple producing state in the US, and Gala and Red Delicious are the most popular varieties sold. Scott McIlrath, a grower who planted 5,000 Cosmic Crisp trees, told KIMA: “I think that will benefit all varieties and the apple growers as a whole.”
But, he noted, “the real impact of cosmic crisp sales won’t be felt to the farmer for another two to three years”.
