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Comment by shawnee_ | Hacker News Reader

And as for apples? Believe it or not, my research found that while it may look fresh, the average apple you see in the supermarket is actually 14 months old.

I'd believe 4 months. Maybe 8. But 14 as the average? That would mean apples more than 14 months old just as likely as those less than 14 months old. Something about this statistic seems off.

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Apples do store very well, a big reason why they're historically popular.

But I suspect you're right to be suspicious of the word average here; they probably meant to say up to.

More evidence: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/supermarket-apples-10-mo...

In North America there seem to be two seasons for apples: autumn in North America, and autumn in South America. In September and October you get the fresh NA apples. In March and April you get the fresh SA apples. There is no reason to have an apple older than 6 months.

I've gotta wonder if he meant 1.4 months. In this economy, nobody would keep 14 months of product in inventory and hope that there's a buyer for it down the road.

The bananas I buy here in the US are flown in from South America in under 48 hours. I can get tulips from Holland in less than that. The apples number makes no sense.

So noone would buy up a lot of the stock of a particular product to artificially inflate prices?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10682433

Nobody would ever do that.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/07/goldmans-sec...

But hoarding a perpetually renewable, perishable product? Doesn't seem likely.

Of course apples are kept for long times. 14 months seems iffy, but in order to sell apples all year round, you have to store them for many months. Most produce is sold this way, but apples are particularly good for storage. You can store apples in cardboard in a cool dry room of your own house for months.

Most produce is not sold this way. It is staggered by hemisphere to take advantage of the seasons. You'll get North American apples in the fall and south american apples during the spring. You may be able to store apples for a few weeks and possible a few months for heartier lines. But every minute it's not sold is money being lost in storage or wastage.

I was of course addressing the parents universal claim that noone buys perishables to stock pile.

FWIW the article refers to Anthony Ward, a dealer in cocoa, who purchased 15% of the worlds supply during a shortage and managed to inflate global prices (depending who you talk to, http://www.tradingvisions.org/content/choc-finger-offloads-h...) enough to sell on a large profit despite considerable wastage.

He's done it before too.

You are quite literally comparing apples to bananas.

Bananas don't keep. Apples can be kept in the proper environment for a year.

Bananas grow year-round in the tropical climates whence they are sourced. Most apples are sourced locally and only grow in late summer/early fall.

If I want to buy an apple in June, the only way to do it is to buy one that's several months old.

That's not how averages work. If you have four apples that are 1 month old each, and one apple that is 66 months old, the average age is 14 months, but a randomly chosen apple is 4 times more likely to be less than 14 months old than to be older.

That's exactly how averages work if you're using the median value rather than the arithmetic mean. If the median age for an apple is 14 months, then you have the same chance of selecting an apple that is either older or younger than 14 months.

"average" is generally taken to mean "arithmetic mean" when its meaning is not otherwise specified.

I agree - more than 1 year makes no sense whatsoever. They grow each year, why would someone pay to stick them in a fridge for an entire year? It's not like the crop is that variable that it's necessary to stockpile them.

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