Trolls find your lack of research Apeeling
Apeel chemical cleaners are not Apeel fruit coatings. They are two separate products by two separate companies.
[Update Apr 17 - This ‘story’ is now being circulated using screencaps, absent the direct evidence of the falsehood. See end of article for details.]
A copy-pasted warning that fruit producers are coating their products in hazardous chemicals appeared in my Facebook feed today, several times. And in chats, several times. Have a look (bolding for brevity):
"Don't eat anything with the "Apeel" sticker on it. It just appeared in our grocery stores saw it for the first time today. The cucumbers not wraped in plastic but there's a big sign says coated in Apeel to protect freshness and reduced plastic waste. The cucumbers also have a sticker on them with the word Apeel. I checked the company out its funded by Bill Gates and others and the WEF indorses it. And i checked there website out you can't find any info about what exactly is apeel. Look at the frequently asked questions. They even tell you there don't buy it if your worried. In Canada so far it's just on cucumbers and maybe apples. In the US it's avocados, apples and I think limes and lemons maybe cucumbers too. The company is very mysterious about what the product actually is. And it can't be washed off no mater how much scrubbing it even says this on the website in the FAQ. Supposedly it can make produce last up to 3 times longer. Also suddenly the price of cucumbers dropped today to just over $3 for 3 cucumbers in a pack or $1.27 a cucumber they really want people to buy these cucumbers." Safety data sheet says : APEEL Hazard statements H318 Causes serious eye damage. H317 May cause an allergic skin reaction. H412 Harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects. Precautionary statements P280 Wear protective gloves/ protective clothing/ eye protection/ face protection. P302+P352 IF ON SKIN: Wash with plenty of water. https://www.evansvanodine.co.uk/assets/eng_apeel.pdf
The .pdf does describe hazardous chemicals in a product named “Apeel,” but take a look at that dot-com in the link. Evans Vanodine? What’s that? It’s a chemical cleaner company. Their company logo is right there in the .pdf itself, as is their distribution area (UK and EU, not USA or Canada). If you visit their domain, you’ll see they have nothing to do with fruit coatings. Rather, they make cleaners using citrus peels.
The cleaner in question:
So what’s up with the sticker on the fruit, then?
I donned my google goggles:
The sticker belongs to a different company, based in the USA and the Netherlands, which makes coatings for produce using fruit peels: Apeel.com.
Not only does the company not incorporate hazardous chemicals in their fruit coatings, safety is one of their selling points. The product is aimed at providing a natural and safe preservative coating, and they’re eager to tell us all about how Apeel works.
The forward’s text also commented that “suddenly the price of cucumbers dropped today to just over $3 for 3 cucumbers in a pack or $1.27 a cucumber. They really want people to buy these cucumbers.” This suggests the produce is spoiling earlier than expected, which suggests not that the new coating is poisonous, but that the new coating is relatively natural. Decomposition is natural. Preservation is not.
Since early decomposition of produce is not good for grocery stores’ sales, and might not be noticed by consumers until after purchase, the Apeel coating might not be a good product. It might also be unhealthy for its own reasons. But it still is not a chemically hazardous product akin to a chemical cleaner. A chemical cleaner has been mistaken for a preservative produce coating.
While the coating company is backed by the Gates Foundation, which gave Apeel Sciences a $100K grant in 2012 and continues to support them, neither Apeel Sciences nor the chemical cleaner company Evans Vanodine is owned by Gates. Evans Vanodine is still owned and run by its founding family. I have found no connection between Evans Vanodine and the Gates.
What’s in a name? A pun. Marketers like puns. Two separate marketers liked this one.
It’s also fair to figure that the dark sides of marketing departments are motivated to engage in meme-war sabotage against successful competing brands by, for example, turning their target demographic against them. But I would only be speculating if I claimed that’s what’s happening here.
In any case, the person who “checked out their website,” did not, and both companies are not “mysterious about the product actually is.” The person checked out a completely different website, and considering the first google result for the most obvious search term, how these mistakes were made is a mystery.
Stay sharp guys.
Update, April 17th
This meme is now appearing with screencaps from Evans Vanodine’s data sheet, removing the logo and the link, and thus removing the ability to easily find the source used to make the false allegation. Is this another error, or is it deliberate?