Going unwaxed
I regularly get an email from Coles on their latest specials and offers - as I do from Woolworths I have to say. And last week I got one with the above heading. All of them I wondered, or just some? So I clicked on to the Read More button and came to the web page they have dedicated to this. And I should just say that I am not plugging Coles - when I looked into it I discovered that Woolworths are about to do it too (more in a minute), but I do find marketing and advertising interesting - The Gruen Transfer is a wonderfully enlightening and simultaneously entertaining program - one of my favourite TV shows really.
And when I looked into it all I found quite a few interesting things.
First of all it seems that apples are naturally waxed, but this wax is removed when they are washed as part of the production process. You would have to wash them for health and safety reasons I imagine. So in the past they have replaced the wax, because it keeps the moisture in the apple as well as making it look more tempting and shiny. The wax used is either a shellac base (from a Thai beetle) or carnauba which is from a kind of palm. Both are totally harmless and approved for use the world over. So we shouldn't get too upset about it, though no doubt many do. And I did check out the opposing views, and I suspect that even the extreme greenies are not really too fussed about it - you can always wash it off. Their main concern was that there might be a few pesticides that don't get fully washed off and are trapped beneath the wax. Anyway the shellac and carnauba are used in all sorts of products like those shown below:
I learnt all this from an apple and pear industry website, which, Coles provides a link to as well. And if you want to know anything about waxing fruit - go there.
Various news articles I found suggest that Woolworths and Coles have been testing out customer attitudes to waxed and unwaxed apples and have decided, as a result to go unwaxed. Coles is definitely going completely unwaxed. I don't know about Woolworths. For here's the thing - no dedicated page to apples on the Woolworths website, as there is on the Coles one. (I did check out bananas as well and Coles has a page telling you about bananas (though not with growers names as with apples), whereas Woolworths only has a small paragraph). Now admittedly Coles is just launching its unwaxed apples - Woolworths has yet to do it - February we are told - so no doubt Coles are making a big feature of it. But they have information on all the different kinds of apples they sell as well.
And they personalise it - working with customers, their fresh food adviser, Curtis Stone, and their growers - some of whom are named with little bits of blurb about them. it's all very homey and reassuring. Really good marketing. And all power to them really. Full marks for cleverness. Honest - well, not lying is probably the truth, but they are probably also not quite telling the whole truth. Like 'fresh'. Of course apples are not fresh all year - they are seasonal fruit that is kept in cool stores - and don't we all know that? Indeed in their run-down of the various types of apple they say when they are in season, - so whilst they still say it's fresh they are simultaneously telling you they are seasonal.
So as has become my wont I looked into one of the growers - from Victoria - and, of course we are not looking at a little orchard growing a few apples here. The one I chose was Rob Thompson of Battunga Orchards, 9 Mile. On the Coles site he is quoted as saying, "There’s no question that not adding wax will mean significant savings for us – it will mean savings on labour, maintenance of machinery and the cost of wax. I’ve seen apples with no added wax in Europe and thought it would be a fantastic saving for growers in Australia. Currently we need 25 people each night just to wash the waxing machine and not adding wax will mean these employees can help in other areas of our business, such as packing for longer.” Well you hope so or does it mean loss of jobs?
9Mile is actually a really big company with this stunning header on their website.
They have the 'largest facility of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere'. And I think Battunga Orchards are just one of the many orchards under their control. But they too personalise it with little personal stories about some of their people. Maybe they all use the same advertising company.
And a final little bit of knowledge. Somewhere else on the Coles website they have a rundown of where they get all their fresh fruit and vegetables from - Australia or somewhere else, explaining the circumstances under which they import. And it seems that apples are purely Australian. Which is good. But then Australia exports apples to the world.
And in the market unwaxed apples are much more expensive than waxed ones. I wonder what will happen with the supermarket ones. Even if the growers say it will save them money, maybe it won't save us any! We'll see. Haven't noticed them making a big deal of it in the actual supermarket. Must have a look when I'm next there.
