These Weird Plastic Apples Keep My Produce Fresher, Longer

And you can buy them for less than $15 on Amazon.

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November 29, 2018

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It doesn’t matter whether you’re a bonafide home chef or just getting your footing in the kitchen, everyone has to go to the grocery store. But grocery shopping can be both time-consuming and expensive. Did you know the average person spends $151 on food each week? It might not sound like a lot at first, but it can add up quickly.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to a lofty grocery bill, like buying fancy (and sometimes overpriced brands) or purchasing random items on a whim. But perhaps the biggest culprit is buying produce that goes bad.

Trust me, I should know.

Nowadays, I spend more time living out of my suitcase than I do in my apartment. Whether I’m visiting my boyfriend at graduate school in Boston, attending a friend’s wedding in Seattle, or going on vacation in San Francisco, I’m always on the go — and my groceries often pay the price.

I buy plenty of fruits and vegetables with the intention of using them during the week, but never consume them all before I’m jetting off on weekends. So, I leave them in my crisper, hoping they’ll be in tip-top shape by the time I come home. More often than not, I arrive home to fuzzy, rotten or down-right stinky produce. Not only is it a major suck on my budget, but it's also a bummer.

Until now, that is.

Recently, I heard about a product called Bluapple, which claims to extend the lifespan of your fruits and vegetables. Desperate to make my produce last longer, I bought a pack — and am thrilled (and honestly kind of surprised) to say they actually worked.

$14.99

Here's how they work: Each Bluapple encases these small, disposable packets that kind of look like those silica gel bags you find in a new coat or purse. But unlike those random silica gel packets, Bluapple’s bags absorb ethylene gas, which kickstarts the ripening process. Removing the ethylene gas from your crisper drawer slows down the ripening process, leaving you with fresher fruits and vegetables for longer. In fact, Bluapple claims it can save a family up to $600 on groceries per year.

I’ll admit that I was skeptical about Bluapple. Sure, it sounded like a good idea, but there’s no way it could possibly work. I'm happy to report I was wrong. Each package comes with two BluApple balls, ideally one for each crisper. I only have one crisper, so I threw both of them in — along with a bag of peppers and purple cabbage — before a recent weeklong trip to San Francisco. When I returned and opened my crisper, my vegetables were in like-new condition. No fuzz on my peppers, no brown spots on my cabbage, and, best of all, no rotten smell. In fact, the only weird thing I noticed was that my crisper smelt a lot like rice cakes, which I’m attributing to the Bluapple’s gas absorbing packets.

You don't have to take my word for it, though. Bluapple currently has a 4.1/5 rating on Amazon, a coveted “Amazon’s Choice Badge,” and an A on Fakespot, a website dedicated to evaluating the accuracy of a product’s Amazon reviews.

In total, two Bluapples and a refill kit cost less than $30 on Amazon. It’s a small investment to for some potentially major savings.

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