Red Delicious

Popularity

The Red Delicious originally became popular thanks to not just its visual appeal but also its durability in storage, making transportation easy. Starting in the 1950s, changes in grocery buying habits led to consumers prioritizing appearance. "We started eating with our eyes and not our mouths," observed the pomologist and apple historian Tom Burford. As a result, commercial growers increasingly selected for longer storage and cosmetic appeal rather than flavor. Consumers at that time associated redness with ripeness. But the selection of redder fruit caused deselection of flavor, and the genes that produced the yellow stripes on the original fruit were on the same chromosomes as those for the flavor-producing compounds. Breeding for uniformity and long shelf life favored a thicker skin.

While the Red Delicious had enjoyed moderate success in the market place, its popularity only took off in the mid-twentieth century. It became the most popular apple in the United States during the 1940s. Up until the 1970s, there were only a small number of apple varieties available for purchase at American supermarkets; these were the Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Red Delicious apples. But according to Tom Burford, it was the Red Delicious that was the most heavily promoted by Washington farmers. By the 1980s, Red Delicious represented three-quarters of the harvest in Washington State. Nevertheless, the selection for beauty and long storage over taste was not popular among consumers. Wholesalers began searching for other apple varieties, such as the Fuji from Japan and the Braeburn and Gala from New Zealand. As these competing cultivars entered supermarkets, demand for the Red Delicious declined. By the 1990s, heavy reliance on the increasingly unpopular Red Delicious had been a factor driving Washington state's apple industry to the brink of collapse. In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed into law a bill bailing out the apple industry, after apple growers had lost $760 million since 1997.

American farmers began to replace the Red Delicious in their orchards with other cultivars such as Gala, Fuji, and Honeycrisp. By 2000, the Red Delicious made up less than one half of the Washington state output, and in 2003, the crop fell to 37% of the state's harvest, which stood at 103 million boxes. Although Red Delicious still remained the single largest variety produced in the state in 2005, others were growing in popularity, notably the Fuji and Gala varieties. By 2014 the Washington Apple Commission was recommending growers plan to export 60% or more of production. In 2018, the Gala overtook the Red Delicious in U.S. sales for the first time. According to the U.S. Apple Association, production of the Gala grew 5.8% in 2018 compared to the previous year, whereas that of the Red Delicious fell 11%. However, exporting the Red Delicious was still a viable option because other countries still had high demand for the apple. In fact, the Red Delicious accounted for around half of all the apples exported by the United States in 2018. However, the COVID-19 pandemic was projected to continue reducing domestic demand for the Red Delicious as many cafeterias and other typical sales points for the apple were closed. By 2021, the Red Delicious accounted for only 15% of the output of Washington state. Despite these challenges, during the mid-2020s, the Red Delicious remained one of the most produced apples in the United States. In 2024, the Red Delicious accounted for 12.3% of the American apple market, behind only the Gala (17%). Washington State, Michigan, and New York are the nation's top producers of this variety. In Oregon, it remains the most produced apple, in terms of the number of 42-pound bushels harvested. However, by this time, most American-harvested Red Delicious apples were for export rather than domestic consumption. Internationally, the top markets for the Red Delicious are Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Meanwhile, in the top apple-growing provinces of Canada (British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec), farmers have switched to the Ambrosia, Honeycrisp, and Gala. As of the 2020s, almost all of Canada's Red Delicious apples were grown in Quebec and Ontario.

In the European Union, the Red Delicious continues to be one of the most popular apples, taking 6 percent of the regional market, behind only the Golden Delicious and the Gala, as of 2024; there has been some growth in the production of this variety.

Sports (mutations)

Over the years many propagable mutations, or sports, have been identified among Red Delicious apple trees.

Patented

In addition to those propagated without any patent applications (or cut out because they were seen as inferior), 42 sports have been patented in the United States:

In 1977, the application for #4159 noted the "starchy and bland taste of some of the newer varieties".

The plant patent for #4926 promoted the sport as a dwarfing interstock, a dwarfing rootstock for pears, or to produce "crab apple"-sized 'Delicious' apples.

Descendant cultivars

• Ambrosia: Golden Delicious × Starking Delicious (suspected)
• Braeburn: Sturmer Pipin × Red Delicious (a parent of Envy)
• Cameo: Golden Delicious × Red Delicious (suspected)
• Empire: McIntosh × Red Delicious
• Fuji: Ralls Janet × Red Delicious (a parent of Autumn Glory and EverCrisp)
• Kidd's Orange Red: Cox's Orange Pippin × Red Delicious (a parent of Gala, and grandparent of Jazz and Kanzi)
• Melrose: Jonathan × Red Delicious
• Sekai Ichi: Golden Delicious × Red Delicious (suspected)