Are Grocery Store Apples a Year Old? Uncover the Truth

The standard grocery store could sell apples that are over a year old. Those apples have been picked when they are unripe, persevered with a chemical known as 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP). 

Are grocery store apples a year old? These apples were waxed, packed, stacked, and stored in a low-temperature room for almost 12 months.

Facts About Grocery Store Apples

If you think you are nurturing your body by eating apples from the grocery store, you are mistaken. If you bought apples from grocery stores, you might have eaten apples that are not fresh. 

The apples you eat regularly are probably five months old. In the United States, apples are picked from August to November. Apples that are sold in December are stored in a regular refrigerator. 

The huge warehouses are packed with apples at 34-38 degrees Fahrenheit. Apples that are planned to sell later will go to controlled atmosphere storage. They stock them at lower oxygen and temperature levels. The normal oxygen levels are about 21% but for storage, they lowered to 2%.

Do not panic. If the apples are stored properly, the taste will be the same. Apples may lose a little bit of acid in storage, but they won’t lose nutritional content.

Apples are stored in warehouses to extend the availability throughout the year.

To slow down apples going bad, many fruit distributors treat their apple boxes with a gaseous compound i.e 1-methylcyclopropene, the same compound used to de-green the broccoli, bitterness in carrots, and browning in lettuce.

A recent study showed that the antioxidant amount will be dropped if apples are stored for a longer time.

American-grown apples have frequently been in storage for around five months. If you eat apples in July, they might have been stored for almost a year.

Apples are picked yearly once in the United States. If you get apples from New York, not in the fall, then they have been stored in the warehouse.

Types of Apple Storage

Two methods are followed to store apples. one is the controlled atmosphere and the other one is regular refrigeration. Apples that are picked from August to November, based on variety, stored in the refrigerated method. The giant warehouses preserve apples at 34 to 38 degrees Fahrenheit, without losing sweetness and crunch until they are shipped to a grocery store.

Apples that are sold later in the year shift to controlled atmosphere storage or CA where temperatures and oxygen levels are lowered. Without oxygen apples can’t breathe hence they kept refrigerated for months. Growers called this stage putting the apples to sleep.