{"id":99459,"date":"2022-03-04T13:03:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T19:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=99459"},"modified":"2022-03-04T13:03:42","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T19:03:42","slug":"with-the-cosmic-crisp-apple-breeder-bruce-barritt-puts-fruit-snobs-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/with-the-cosmic-crisp-apple-breeder-bruce-barritt-puts-fruit-snobs-first\/","title":{"rendered":"With the Cosmic Crisp, apple breeder Bruce Barritt puts fruit snobs first"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Christian Thorsberg
\n<\/strong>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDid you hear it?\u201d The Zoom call eclipses into an all-crimson canvas and resounds a noisy crescendo \u2014 something akin to striking thunder, or an ice cube splintering. \u201cYes? You heard a crack?\u201d Bruce Barritt asks, backing away from his screen and spitting a mouthful of white, juicy flesh off-camera. \u201cWhat an experiment!\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll do it again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The 78-year-old, sinking his teeth into an object he calls his \u201cchild,\u201d is showing off decades of his work: a crimson apple, its skin speckled with white dots resembling the cosmos, freshly removed from Barritt\u2019s kitchen freezer after a 10-month stay \u2014 around the average time an apple is stored before hitting grocery shelves. Another crack. Barritt wipes his mouth with a bony hand, juices still dribbling down his chin, and recedes again from his close-up. \u201cSo, that\u2019s crispness,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Crisp, firm, juicy, sweet, tart: They\u2019re the \u201cbig five\u201d characteristics the now-retired fruit breeder spent 40 years attempting to pack into a single, baseball-sized, 100-calorie apple. The trademarked, Washington-bred \u201cCosmic Crisp\u201d that Barritt shows now achieves this feat and more. \u201cIt\u2019s a Tesla amongst old Chevrolets,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From breeding and growing to marketing and selling, the American apple industry is valued at $20 billion. It\u2019s bolstered by household names like Red Delicious (which made its commercial debut in 1874), Gala (1965) and Fuji (1962), and a wave of emerging stars: Honeycrisp (1991), Snapdragon (2013) and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the market is preparing for a new top variety, said Jim Bair, president and CEO of USApple, the regulating body of the United States\u2019 apple industry. The Cosmic Crisp\u2019s \u201cfabulous taste,\u201d long storage life and popularity in Washington orchards \u2014 where two-thirds of America\u2019s apples are grown \u2014 means \u201cit will be one of the next big apples\u201d for years to come, Bair said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cosmic Crisp story began decades ago in Kelowna, British Columbia, where Barritt was born and lives today. Both his father and grandfather were gardeners, and Barritt grew up with \u201ctwo green thumbs,\u201d he said, but didn\u2019t know how to use them until a college internship in the nearby Okanagan Valley. He saw the growth and production of new apple and cherry varieties, and was inspired to pursue apple research.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1969, Barritt graduated from Cornell University with a Ph.D. in pomology, the science of fruit growing and breeding. For over a decade, he worked at Washington State University, conducting general research on all fruit. Then in 1985, he moved three hours west to the university\u2019s Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Wenatchee, where research opportunities revealed the stagnant state of America\u2019s apples.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me to do \u2018horticultural research to help the industry,\u2019\u201d Barritt said. \u201cWell, OK, that\u2019s pretty broad. So I started by spending a year visiting every orchard I could. Dozens and dozens.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Barritt might as well have visited only one. Each orchard looked the same to him. One of the few commercial apples grown in America, the Red Delicious had a monopoly on tree branches and grocery shelves. It was a safe investment for everyone, growers told Barritt. Consumers didn\u2019t know any other apple, and growers didn\u2019t want to spend money and time \u2014 $70,000 per acre, decades waiting for saplings to fully mature \u2014 investing in another variety.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Barritt sympathized with these concerns, but didn\u2019t agree with putting growers before consumers, particularly with an \u201cinefficient\u201d Red Delicious. \u201cI don\u2019t criticize other apple varieties,\u201d said Barritt, who critiques the Red Delicious\u2019 \u201csoft, chewy, not juicy\u201d shortcomings. He then repeated the crucial question he asked in Wenatchee in 1988: \u201cWhy can’t we have a nuanced attitude about apples, the way we do coffee, marijuana or wine?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What Steve Jobs is to Apple, Bruce Barritt is to apples. \u201cSteve Jobs never did consumer research,\u201d Barritt said. \u201cHe said consumers have no idea what a smartphone is, or what we can put into one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Barritt disappeared from the Zoom call for a moment, then returned with a letter marked \u201cApril 4, 1994,\u201d sent from the Washington Tree Fruit Commission. He keeps the original copy near his desk at home. \u201cI spent six years lobbying the apple industry for something better,\u201d he said. \u201cFor an apple consumers really want.\u201d Barritt laughed as he looked over the letter, then read aloud its contents \u2014 a curt approval for him to begin breeding on a new variety of apple, along with a $60,000 grant. \u201cIt would seem to be quite begrudging, a backdoor way of saying, \u2018I guess you can do it,\u2019\u201d Barritt said. \u201cBut the vote was five to two, and we were off.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1997, the breeding process began with the cross-pollination of the Honeycrisp and Enterprise, chosen because they exhibited characteristics Barritt wanted his variety to enhance and perfect. But \u201cbiology is slow,\u201d and the project\u2019s early years were mainly spent waiting for Wenatchee orchards to grow. \u201cAt the start I was 51 years old,\u201d Barritt said. \u201cThat\u2019s old! Especially for a research project like this.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But as apples at last began growing and offspring were cross-pollinated, the fun \u2014 or, really, the not so fun \u2014 began: Barritt walking up and down rows of trees, conducting thousands of taste tests, spitting out thousands of bad apples.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cInitially, they just taste revolting,\u201d said Kate Evans, a fruit breeder who joined Barrit\u2019s lab in 2008 and now oversees the Cosmic Crisp apple. \u201cMaybe it has a nutritional disorder or little black spots. Maybe the fruit\u2019s just downright ugly. They might be soft, mealy, bitter. In our selection process, these are all fatal flaws.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At last, in 2007, one bite changed everything. Barritt came upon \u201cthe mother tree,\u201d the 38th generation sapling that had grown the apple with all \u201cbig five\u201d characteristics and bore the Cosmic Crisp as it is known today. Its seeds were saved, and after 12 additional years of testing, large-scale growing and marketing, the Cosmic Crisp continues to emerge as the apple industry\u2019s boon: 13 million trees have been planted in the last three years, a sign that growers trust and anticipate its long-term economic prosperity. An unprecedented $500 million has been invested in the brand, and orchards in Chile, Australia, New Zealand and the Italian Alps are preparing to make the Cosmic Crisp the center of the apple universe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal as a breeder is to have more people validate your evaluation,\u201d Evans said. \u201cIt is a pretty big moment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Apple pickers are also praising the Cosmic Crisp, Bair said, which is a crucial and underappreciated element of commercial success. Many apples, including the Honeycrisp, are fragile on the stem, making them difficult to pick. Two hands and extra care are needed, which takes more time. With the Cosmic Crisp, pickers can use one hand without fear of bruising the apple. This allows for greater yields in less time, which translates to a less expensive apple: good news for avid fruit eaters as the Cosmic Crisp expands its grocery store-rollout in 2022 and 2023, moving east across the United States. The Washington-bred apple is expected to cost $3.50, on average, per pound.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barritt rotates his Cosmic Crisp, exposing its two bite-shaped chunks and a sixth characteristic: The interior is still ivory white, with no hint of browning despite sitting out in his room temperature office for 60-plus minutes. Barritt smiles and smooths out his approval letter, tucking it back safely into its drawer. \u201cI see myself in this apple,\u201d he says. \u201cGrit, perseverance.\u201d He takes one more bite and says through mouthfuls: \u201cIt\u2019s just a damn good apple.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Christian Thorsberg is a science and environmental graduate student at Medill.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Christian Thorsberg Medill Reports \u201cDid you hear it?\u201d The Zoom call eclipses into an all-crimson canvas and resounds a noisy crescendo \u2014 something akin to striking thunder, or an ice cube splintering. \u201cYes? You heard a crack?\u201d Bruce Barritt asks, backing away from his screen and spitting a mouthful of white, juicy flesh off-camera. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":841,"featured_media":99460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,5155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-science","category-winter-2022"],"yoast_head":"\nWith the Cosmic Crisp, apple breeder Bruce Barritt puts fruit snobs first - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/with-the-cosmic-crisp-apple-breeder-bruce-barritt-puts-fruit-snobs-first\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"With the Cosmic Crisp, apple breeder Bruce Barritt puts fruit snobs first - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Christian Thorsberg Medill Reports \u201cDid you hear it?\u201d The Zoom call eclipses into an all-crimson canvas and resounds a noisy crescendo \u2014 something akin to striking thunder, or an ice cube splintering. \u201cYes? 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