Okanagan Specialty Fruits is a small biotech company from central BC. For the past twenty years they have been trying to get their main product to market, jumping regulatory hoop after hoop. All they have been trying to sell is an apple.
But their apples are special.
They don’t brown like a normal apple when sliced because they have been genetically-engineered to not produce the chemical that in most apples oxidises when exposed to air. Because GM techniques were involved, it took nearly 20 years to finally get USDA approval to grow their apples in the US (Canada is expected to grant permission soon).
This means that these are the most scientifically tested apples ever grown by humans.
Much of the GM debate focuses either on unfounded claims about the safety of GM foods or, when those are debunked, the concern that GM tech is being dominated by a few small big-agri companies (argumentum ad Monsantum). But both of these arguments completely miss the fact that small companies are spending absurd amounts of money and time, to an unreasonable degree, the safety of their food and that there is a large amount of public-sector research into GM happening.
So congrats to Arctic Apples on being deregulated in the US (and hopefully soon making it to shelves) and let’s hope their steadfast efforts pave the way for other novel foods to make it forward.