Stay tuned in to our local news coverage: Listen to 90.7 WMFE on your FM or HD radio, the WMFE mobile app or your smart speaker — say “Alexa, play NPR” and you’ll be connected.

The mid-20th century was a bad time to be an apple lover. The produce section of supermarkets only had a few apples, and one stood tall above the rest: mealy, and tough-skinned, it was the Red Delicious.

Back in those days, apples were a commodity, and the race to provide apples at the lowest price suppressed prices for all apple growers and discouraged apple innovation. A few things helped change that world for the better — and chief among them was the discovery of the Honeycrisp.

This is the story of that miracle apple and the innovation that made the business of better apples sustainable — all while hastening the downfall of the Red Delicious.

Listen to the original Planet Money podcast episode here! Subscribe to our video series here — and, while you’re at it, subscribe to our podcast.

Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.