How to Best Store Your Apples

Fall is here, and that means it’s apple season!

Hale Groves’ Orchard Fresh Apples are some of the best you’ll ever taste…when you buy apples from Hale Groves, you’ll find this beauties to be sweet, crispy, juicy, and bursting with flavor, making them just right for eating out of hand or using in your favorite apple recipes. They look almost as good as they taste, too: big, round, and fragrant with scarlet and red-orange vertical streaks over a yellowish-green background, their very appearance evokes some of autumn’s best imagery. So much so, in fact, you may be tempted to use them as part of your fall décor.

But while our Orchard Fresh Apples make a pretty centerpiece when piled in a wooden bowl on the kitchen table or a piece of autumnal artistry when gathered into an old-fashioned bushel basket, we at Hale Groves want you to enjoy our apples at their best, so we encourage you to transfer your apple fruit box to the fridge as soon as it arrives.

Why Apples Last Longer in the Fridge

The truth is that apples keep longer when stored in the refrigerator, and the colder your fridge is, the longer your apples will last (apples last longest when stored between 31-36°F, which is colder than most people keep their refrigerators that cold.

Unlike citrus fruits which are the ripest they’ll ever be at the time they’re picked, pome fruits like apples and pears continue to ripen long after they’ve been harvested from the tree. That’s because that these fruits emit a harmless, colorless gas called ethylene. Cool temperatures slow the emission of this gas, allowing your apples to last much longer than they would at room temperature.

Some fruits and vegetables are sensitive to ethylene-emitting fruits, which is why they should be stored separately. Storing your apples in a crisper with asparagus, carrots, broccoli, celery and greens, for example, will make these veggies go off faster than they would if you kept them separate.

Will Storing Apples in the Refrigerator Affect Their Taste?

Here’s the good news – when you order apples from Hale Groves for yourself or receive an apple gift basket from Hale Groves, they’re going to taste amazing with any further ripening, so you can go ahead and move them to the fridge right away. This is because our apples stay on the tree until they’ve reached their peak of ripeness – in fact, they’re still on the tree at the time you place your order. (You won’t get apples any fresher unless you picked them yourself!)

Thus, then your Hale Groves Apples arrive, leaving them to sit on the counter or on the table won’t make them any riper, but in fact will overripen them. Instead of getting sweeter, they’ll just get softer, which means you’ll lose their signature crispiness without improving the flavor at all. So, if you prefer to eat your apples at room temperature, take them out of the refrigerator for a little while before snacking on them rather than storing them on the counter.

Applies Love Humidity

Want to extend the life of your apples even more? This may seem counterintuitive, but humidity does the trick.

If you’ve ever opened the crisper in your fridge only to encounter a shriveled apple, it’s not how long you’ve had the apple that caused this – it’s the humidity (or lack thereof) in your fridge.

Refrigerators are act as dehydrators, which is good for many cold-storage foods, but not so good for produce (this is why the produce section in your local grocery store automatically sprays water over much of the fresh fruits and vegetables).

Apples last longest in an environment with 90% humidity. Not to worry, though – this problem is easily solved. Simply put a wet sponge or paper towel in the crisper with your apples, or spritz them with water every few days to extend their edibility.

Enjoy Your Apples!

When a loved one calls to thank you for the healthy gift basket from Hale Groves you sent (or they express their intention to use the fruit gift card they received to buy apples online from Hale Groves), make sure to let him or her know to remove the apples from the basket and store them in the coldest part of their refrigerator, away from other fruits and vegetables and with a wet sponge or paper towel to keep them at their best. That way they’ll be sure to enjoy their apples for weeks to come!