Tyler Blance- Produce Merchandising

The month of January brings about a lot of things. For many of us in the northeast, January typically means a lot of snow and cold weather, and a lot of shoveling that snow and bearing through that cold weather. To us here at Price Chopper, January brings something much more pleasant: Piñata apples! January marks the availability of Piñata apples at our stores, and we couldn’t be more excited about it. The piñata apples you can find this time of year at your local Price Chopper are grown exclusively by the folks at Stemilt in Washington, and there’s quite a story behind these tropical-inspired beauties. For a lot of produce items, the history of the crop dates back to times we can’t even imagine. Humans were working wonders with crops like maize (corn) far before the United States was even a thought! The story of Piñata apples, however, starts in the 1970’s. Researchers in Dresden-Pillnitz, Germany were doing some apple work. They crossed 3 varieties of apples: Golden Delicious, Cox’s Orange Pippin and the Duchess of Oldenburg. The result: One awesome apple which couldn’t be kept a secret. It was finally released in Europe in 1986, under the names “Pinova” and “Sonata”. It was a hit, and in 2004 Stemilt became the exclusive growers of the apples, later combining the words and naming them “piñata” apples. The name ties together the original names of the apple with its exciting attributes! Pretty cool, right? As the late-great Billy Mays would often say, “But wait! There’s more!” Check out the awesome video below to find out more about piñata apples: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prMmH1nZMGA]