Decline of the Fuji

I remember my sister recommending the Fuji apple to me, probably in the 1980's. They became my favorite apple--crisp and sweet. I bought them at Safeway. For some years they were packaged almost like eggs, coming on cardboard trays. Then they started coming in bulk, just like other apples, Red Delicious and such. But they were still good. I was willing to pay the premium price the store charged. Apples are seasonal, of course, and I remember seeing New Zealand Fuji's imported during the spring and summer to match the Washington Fujis available in the fall and winter. I wrote "match", but they didn't really match them. The imported apples weren't quite as good as the U.S. ones, but since all spring and summer apples are either imported or come from cold storage they still usually were better than other apples available at the same time.

But recently I've grown more dissatisfied with Fuji's. They're smaller and less reliably sweet and crisp. I'd guess what's happened is, as apple growers switched to Fuji's, the quality control has suffered. After all, this is a classic case of what economists call "free riding". Once the Fuji reputation is good enough to justify a price premium, there's every incentive for growers to cut corners on the quality. Plant poorer trees, ship a higher percentage of the apples from a tree. (Not every apple on a tree is of the same quality.)

It's another example of the problems with an unregulated free market. And it's an example of why I'm testing different apples from the store again.