This is the second in an occasional series of reviews of new grocery (and other) products that strike me as interesting or unusual. Also see a previous entry, Tiger Power.
Intro
Reminding me of an article from BoingBoing last year (about genetically engineered bananas with othe fruit flavors embedded), Grapples (the a is long, like “grape” – it doesn’t rhyme with Snapple) are Fuji apples that have been dipped in water and Concord grape flavor; no added sugar or calories.
The positioning seems to be that kids are sick of apples and like the taste of grapes better. Personally, I’m kinda weirded by things that look like one thing and taste like something else. Many years ago I was on a backpacking trip through Europe, and got used to having many meals by going into a grocery store and picking up a few things that I would then sit on a bench and eat. In Amsterdam, I picked up some meat, and cheese, and a chocolate milk. It was in the familiar pint carton, with a picture of a brown cow in a field, and some Dutch word like Chokomilkenblurgen or something. After finishing my main course, I opened up the carton, and tilted my head back and to take a big slug of sweet and refreshing chocolate milk.
But it was pudding.
Oh boy. The texture was a big unpleasant surprise. My brain was ready for one thing (based on the cues available) and my senses told me something else.
Grapple is grappling with the same sensory challenge; but I bet their target (young children) aren’t going to care.
The Package
Here’s the package:
The package is minimal, as it should be. The product lives in the produce section and wants to look as much like regular produce as possible. Clear packaging, highlighting the fruit itself. It’s a poly-plastic hinged deal that snaps closed, with four compartments for the apples. The uniformity of apple size required to fit into a plastic molded container is a bit startling, obviously there are sorting processes in place to get produce distributors the size of fruit/veg they want, but we still think of these as natural products with lots of natural variation – the idea that they could be uniform enough to stack in a plastic container seems slightly odd. It does, however, suit the sci-fi notion of Apples That Taste Like Grapes, so there ya go.
The package opens us like so:
Eating
As with any fruit, wash before eating. Okay, wash, and…umm, this is an apple? Yeah, the expected flavor explosion, the grapeness di tutti grapey did not materialize. It tasted like an apple. A Fuji apple. A little tasteless in spots, in fact. If you were aware of the grape factor and gave it whiff, you might believe there was grapeliness imbued therein, but if you picked it up and chomped on it thinking it was an apple, you would finish not realizing you had done anything different. A $1/unit, that seems a bit silly.
I guess we could have done the blind study and asked people how they liked them apples, but really, trust me, I couldn’t taste anything.
Caveat considor: if their demographic is little kids, we know they have amazingly sensitive taste buds. Back in my grade 8 days, I did a Science Fair experiment where we gave people Smarties (for Americans, this is a candy that resembles M&Ms) blindfolded and asked them to identify the color. It was a surprising experiment to many because they didn’t even think there was a difference to be noted. But very young kids could identify the color of the Smartie by taste within a second.
Conclusion
For an adult, this is an expensive and fruitless offering. But has anyone given one of these apples to a little kid? Did they notice a difference? I’d be curious to hear if there’s any there, there.
Read more about Grapple here.
I was trawling the logs for outside links (I don’t get that many) and came up with your blog.
I meant to write about Grapples, but decided to wait untill I could buy some to taste. I hoped that it would be a genetically engineered apple (Michurin’s dream as they used to say in the Soviet Union), but alas it’s not.
You might enjoy my old article about ge fruit though. I recently actually found a ge pinapple in my grocery store, but didn’t write about that yet either.
Comment by Deadprogrammer 03.08.05 @ 11:42 pmHi – found your article thanks to core77. Perhaps the grapey-ness was lost whent he apples were washed? After all – they were merely dipped in the juice rather than, say, fermented in it…
Comment by Anonymous 03.09.05 @ 9:51 amI have to disagree – I love a grapple. I don’t know that they taste exactly like grapes, per se, but the grape juice makes the apple sweeter, and gives an added dimension of flavor. I’m not that crazy about apples, but I’ll eat the heck out of some grapples. I’ve turned some friends on to them, and they noticed the difference and loved it too. (note: we are all in our thirties and childless, so I don’t know what kids think)
Comment by Anonymous 03.09.05 @ 4:37 pmI was excited to try the Grapple, even at $4 per carton. To me, the (artificial) grape “smell” is stronger than the taste, as after a week, I can still smell the remaining Grapple in the kitchen. I was likewise confused about the origin of the grapeiness – perhaps a new hybrid I thought and was a little disappointed to find out it was just grape flavoring. I did try it on kids, 1 & 4, but the apples are so large, I chopped them up and they didn’t touch them (they’re used to eating apples peeled and whole). I agree they are expensive and I may not try again, unless for a party, ect. But – an interesting concept. I think it will appeal most to 5-12 year olds.
Comment by Anonymous 03.11.05 @ 7:30 pmWe love Grapples! When I say we, I mean a span from 3 yrs old to 40.
Comment by Anonymous 04.08.05 @ 7:08 amThey are really good and somehow seem crispier and better than just an apple without the $4.00 package appeal. ha ha
Even though I feel like I am getting the total rip off when I buy them, they are a great treat.
And one thing for sure, I can have regular apples sitting out in the fruit bowl and they will sit there and go bad but the Grapple ones always are eaten within a day…
HOW DO THEY KNOW???
I am actually on here trying to figure out how to make my own by just buying the fuji apples and dipping them in? something…
I recently bought a four-pack of Grapples. What a bummer to find out that they were only dipped in grape juice or whatever. I thought it was a new variety of apple. At five bucks a package, it was also a rip-off. They smell great but don’t taste very grape-y. Think I’ll stick to the Red Delicious.
Comment by TexMex 04.12.05 @ 12:30 pmI know for a fact that washing is not neccessary and washes the flavor off. I ate one without washing, and it tasted great. I then washed one, and it had no grape flavor. They don’t need to be washed because they are already washed before they are bathed in the juice. They are also in packaging that protects them from germs.
Comment by Anonymous 04.27.06 @ 4:43 amHello. We are in Atlanta, and just experienced the disappointment of grapples. Basiclly, we were let down. Our hopes and dream of eating two fruits in one had manifested itself into the grapple, which we saw at the store. After a restless ride home, we finnaly bit into the grapple. Saddly, our dreams were crushed as the enteral saddness of our soul died in our mouths that only tasted apple.
Comment by Anonymous 07.02.06 @ 1:57 pmwe are looking forward for the Aape, the grape that tasts like apples – the wonderful texture of grapes with the full apple falovr.
[...] This is the third in an occasional series of reviews of new grocery (and other) products that strike me as interesting or unusual. See also Tiger Power and Grapple. [...]
Pingback by Portigal Consulting 07.14.06 @ 3:06 pm[...] Note: This is the fourth in an occasional series of reviews of new grocery (and other) products that strike me as interesting or unusual. See also Tiger Power, Grapple, and Bumblebee Entre Style Tuna. [...]
Pingback by All This ChittahChattah : Blog Archive : Pete’s Tofu2Go desserts 10.02.06 @ 7:06 pmI don’t care about the cost, these are the best tasting apples I have ever tasted! Im willing to splurge on these!
Comment by Trish 12.04.06 @ 4:15 pmI never, ever eat a fruit without washing it– so I’d have to say it smelled great but tasted basically like a fuji apple. On top of that, when I read the package and realized that it had some artificial grape flavor, I was peeved. I don’t buy apples so that I can get an extra dose of anything artificial!
Faith
Comment by Faith 12.13.06 @ 9:04 pmI LOVE THESE,,,PLEASE TELL ME WHERE I CAN FIND THEM in Florida, the only place was walmart and now they are out.
Comment by Laura Munch 03.21.07 @ 9:37 amThank-You Laura Munch St. Petersburg Florida
Laura – I ate grapples. I do not make, sell or distribute them. Why don’t you contact the people that do that? Follow the link in the past, or http://www.grapplefruits.com/contact.html
Comment by Steve Portigal 03.21.07 @ 10:01 amMy 8 and 10-year-old kids love Grapples. The love regular apples too and eat them almost daily, but Grapples really delight my younger son. Maybe they’ve changed the process, but I found that they taste quite grapey–like really sweet grape juice–and don’t much like them. My son now wants to make his own Grapples. Any thoughts on how long they soak these things to get them grapey?
Comment by Virginia 03.31.07 @ 6:25 amTotally disgusting. Artificial. Freaky. Franken-apple.
Comment by Justin 01.23.08 @ 2:08 pm