Apples that never go brown could be on sale as early as
2014.
A Canadian biotech company has filed a request with food
regulators to start selling two varieties it claims will stay fresh
for weeks on end.
Okanagan Specialty Fruits said the genetically modified
apples have had the gene responsible for browning ‘silenced’,
meaning they remain green or red indefinitely.
The firm hopes that it will get approval in the U.S. and
Canada within a year and will start planting trees - with the fruit
being sold the year afterwards.
Its founder and grower Neal Carter said it wanted approval
for two varieties, its ‘arctic granny’ and ‘arctic golden’
apples.
They are different from apples like Empires in that even
if their white flesh is exposed, they will not start to brown and
can be left like that for weeks.
Mr Carter said that GM apples would benefit growers as
they would not have to throw away brown or bruised fruit and there
will be more good quality
apples.
He also said that apples would not need to need to be
chemically treated before being processed for food and that juice
will be clearer.
Mr Carter said: ‘At the end of the day, it’s just a very
nice apple that doesn’t go brown.’
Fruit growers in Canada however have attacked Okanagan and
said that consumers will be confused about what kind of fruit hey
are buying.
Kirpal Boparai, president of the British Columbia Fruit
Growers’ Association, said: ‘These will drive the prices of other
apples down’.
Lana Popham of the New Democratic Party has gone so far as
to start a petition against Okanagan’s arctic variety which has
2,000 signatures.
She said: ‘The certified organic growers could potentially
lose their organic status, because of the ability for pollen to be
transferred from genetically modified apple trees to certified
organic apple trees.
‘That’s one of the strong points around certified organic
production, is that there are no genetically modified
organisms.’
