Sliced apples: The best thing since sliced bread?

Gone forever perhaps are the days when teachers were presented with apples, shiny and crisp and sometimes even a tad battered. Teachers these days are more likely to get their apples in the form of a colorful border on cute notepaper or a plastic facsimile.

There's now another option. How about a snack bag of neatly sliced apples guaranteed not to brown within 10 minutes or so? A company in Washington state is selling this little convenience and even adding caramel dip for good measure.

Whole, crunchy apples are still the norm, however, for most who crave the fresh fruit.

Washington, which grows more than half the fresh apples eaten in the United States, will ship 89-million boxes this year. Of that number, about 30-million will be exported, says Tom Swearingen, advertising and public relations director for the Washington State Apple Commission.

Americans on average eat close to 20 pounds of apples a year, according to the commission. That might sound like a lot, but it's much less than the estimated 46 pounds the apple folks say are devoured by Europeans.

Probably not surprising, red delicious is the favorite apple in America, followed by golden delicious. Those are followed by Granny Smith, gala and Fuji.

"Fuji is rapidly becoming very popular, especially on the West Coast," Swearingen says of the variety that is not harvested until October. "It's a very sweet apple and people who like a sweet apple seem to gravitate toward that," he says.

While whole apples and products made from them are common, sales of fresh sliced apples are increasing.

"It's convenience more than anything," Swearingen said of the packaged slices.

"It's got a lot of potential, I think, depending on consumer acceptance. You are going to pay a little bit more, but they taste excellent. One of the problems of slicing (apples) at home is that they don't last long. People like to make vegetable and fruit trays with them and then, hopefully, parents will buy them and put them in their children's lunch bags."

While packaged sliced apples may not be as popular as packaged salads and baby carrots, Gail Morrison, sales coordinator for Crunch Pak, a company that sells the packaged fruit, says the convenience has been a hit with gym owners and athletes.

"It has been crazy. It has just been overwhelming. We anticipated it going over big, but we didn't expect it to grow so fast,"Morrison says.

The sliced apples are rinsed in a blend of vitamins and minerals that prevent discoloration. Morrison says there is no aftertaste and that, stored in the refrigerator, the packaged fruit can last up to 21 days. The firm ships its product to some Publix stores in Florida, among them those in Lakeland and Jacksonville, she says.

The approach of autumn isn't signaled only by the appearance of bushels of apples. In Florida, it's time for the first harvest of oranges, tangerines and grapefruit. Ample rains have benefited the state's citrus crop, which is maturing a bit earlier this year. Richard Kinney, executive vice president of the Florida Citrus Packers Association, says that toward the end of the month, shoppers should expect to see Robinson tangerines, grapefruit and Hamlin oranges.

Produce

In September look for apples, avocados, snap beans, blueberries, cabbage, cantaloupes, honeydews, cauliflower, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, summer squash, sweet corn, eggplant, grapes, limes, nectarines, okra, peaches, pears, bell peppers, mangos and carambola.

Seafood

Florida lobsters are plentiful, shrimp prices are low, clams are both abundant and inexpensive and South American mahi mahi is a great value.

That's the assessment for this month from Gib Migliano of Save on Seafood in St. Petersburg.

"They are having a record year in the Keys as far as lobster production. We can expect to see some lobster prices trending downward, probably in the middle of September," Migliano says.

Whole fresh lobsters will cost about $6.99 a pound, he says.

"They're really great when they are fresh. Some of these frozen tails, you don't know how long they've been around," Migliano says, adding that fresh tails will cost around $18.99 a pound.

Clams will be a good buy this month, particularly those being raised by displaced mullet anglers in the Cedar Key area, Migliano said. "We just sell hundreds and hundreds of bags of them every week," he says.

Typically, prices are around $2.99 a dozen.

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