Genetically modified apples, which do not change color in the air, can be bought in 400 supermarkets in the USA already in November 2017.
Apples, not covered with a brown coating on the cut, created the specialists of the Canadian company Okanagan Specialty Fruit. GM fruits are called Arctic Apples. President of the company Neal Carter (Neal Carter) spoke in an interview about the first crop of modified apples and the features of marking GM products.
In early 2017, the US Department of Agriculture issued a permit to sell Arctic Apples in US stores. In autumn Okanagan Specialty Fruit collected the first large crop: 82 kilograms of apples. The company plans to sell them for three months. This year, the technology of obtaining non-darkening fruits was applied to the Golden Delicious variety – it is on the list of 15 most popular varieties in the USA.
Next year, Carter and his colleagues are planning to modify green apples “Granny Smith.”
The goal of the creators of GM fruits is to make apples “convenient” for customers and thus help the population of cities have more fruits. Carter comments: “We see that the level of apples consumption per capita has been declining over the past decades because they seem” uncomfortable. “When the sliced and packaged carrots came on sale, the level of consumption of this root crop doubled.” Okanagan Specialty Fruit hopes to repeat This success, selling apples, sliced in. Arctic Apples do not darken for three weeks.
When creating the Arctic Apples used technology of genetic engineering: the apples “disconnected” the gene associated with the production of polyphenol oxidase – an enzyme that causes the fruits to darken in the air. Despite this, the fruit is not labeled “GMO”. On apples will place stickers with a QR-code, leading to the accompanying text on the company’s website.
