At our local supermarket, apples are available all year round. It’s highly unlikely that the apple shelf will be empty, and a sign would be put up saying ‘sold out’ or ‘for apples, please wait until the next harvest’ or ‘due to scarcity, a maximum of two apples per customer.’ We are blessed to live in an age where the abundance of an annual medieval harvest festival is repeated on any given weekday. In the supermarket.

Our ancestors could never have dreamt of it: the reality of an uninterrupted supply would have far exceeded their imagination. Apples every day of the year, as many as you like, at a bargain price. An unprecedented success story. With a few downsides.

One of these is that the range of varieties has been dramatically reduced over the last century. Where are the hundreds of varieties described and illustrated in Apples of New York, Pomona Herefordiensis, and Deutsche Pomologie – books about the common fruit of around a hundred years ago?

Count the different varieties of apple you come across in the supermarket over the course of a year, and you probably won’t even reach ten.

If we are to believe the breeders and food producers, the Kanzi, Jazz, and Fuji varieties were developed to satisfy consumers’ tastes and meet their demand. There’s no getting round it – the customer is king. And that king simply loves things that are sweet and simple, shiny and flawless, and, according to the food industry, certainly not keen on any kind of flavor adventure.

In 2026, the Elstar is the queen of apples, at least when it comes to total annual sales. It takes the top spot with a whopping 40 percent of the market. In second place is the Jonagold, with around 25 percent. The newcomer Kanzi and the Royal Gala follow, each with around 8 percent. Then there’s 6 percent for the ever-present Granny Smith (acetic acid, toothache) and 5 percent for the old-fashioned Boskoop or Goudreinet. (These numbers are related to the Dutch market.)

The apple trade is therefore dominated by a very small number of commercial successes.

Global harvests—and not just those of apples—have never been as large as they have been in recent decades. There can be no doubt that the resulting significant increase in food security is a blessing for the world. However, while the bulk of the harvest has grown enormously, its diversity has declined dramatically.

The Latin verb augēre—'to increase'—is etymologically linked to augustus. This is the honorific title of Octavius Caesar, Emperor Augustus, ‘the increaser.' The eighth month is named after him, the ‘oeghstmaent’ (‘harvest month' in old Dutch), in which each year the increase—from a single seed to many—takes place.

THE IMAGE: Fire above Heaven The sun is high in the sky. The dry heat of late summer is ripening the fruit and seeds. They are becoming ever thicker, heavier, and sweeter. Everything comes together in the great harvest.

If you take the time to look through your eyelids, you can still see the recent past of seed and fruit, their former forms. Such as the still-green fruit, the thickened fruit base, the open flower, the pistil, and the stamens. And also: insects and wind, the sun and spring rain, delicate, translucent leaves, the still-closed leaf and flower buds. A germinating seed. And the previous harvest.