CHICAGO - Neal Carter has big plans for the non-browning apple.

The CEO of Okanagan Specialty Fruits in Summerland, British Columbia, is awaiting regulatory approval of the genetically modified Arctic® Apple, which doesn’t turn brown after being cut or sliced. The company is starting with Granny and Golden apples and plans to branch out into eight to ten other varieties after United States regulators sign off, he said.

“We can make any variety of apple non-browning,” he said in an interview during the BIO 2013 International Convention.

Carter says he hopes to commercialize the Arctic® Apple in the fall of 2015 in both retail and foodservice channels. He said that he expects to have an international market as well and has had expressions of interest from people in the United Kingdom, South Africa and China.

In the pipeline, he said, are traits that could deal with problems such as fire blight, a major disease of apples that is currently treated with antibiotic sprays, in both conventional and organic production.

Carter predicts that genetic engineering in plants, now found mainly in commodity crops, will soon spread into specialty crops - fruits and vegetables.

“The grocers are expecting it to happen,” he said.

Crop biotechnology is desperately needed to meet problems of drought, saline soils, loss of farmland, rural poverty, and population growth, according to Neal Carter, an orchardist and bioresource engineer who has developed a non-browning apple.

“It’s a huge challenge, and biotech crops are leading the way in allowing us to address it,” Carter said in a talk at a TEDx conference. Carter’s company is bringing out the Arctic Apple, which doesn’t turn brown when sliced.

Carter took on the claims by biotech opponents that the technology is unsafe, pointing out that the food safety of genetically engineered crops has been affirmed by the American Medical Association, World Health Organization, and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, among other distinguished groups.

Biotechnology reduces food waste, makes better use of water, increases yields, improves farmer income, and improves people’s lives, Carter said.

A video of his presentation is available here.