Bill Gates Owns Synthetic Fruit Coating — What’s in It?

Do you know what Apeel is? In an April 24, 2023, Twitter thread,¹ Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director at the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), lists the many patents associated with this mysterious synthetic fruit coating, which is even approved for use on produce certified as USDA Organic.

According to Apeel Sciences’ website,² Apeel is a plant-based protective coating that “helps the produce you love stay fresh for longer.” It retains moisture within the produce and keeps oxygen out, thereby slowing the spoilage rate.

Avocados, cucumbers, lemons and limes, mandarins, oranges, organic apples, grapefruit and mangos are listed as produce that are currently being treated with this coating.

Apeel-treated produce can be found in several large grocery chains in the U.S., including Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Harps Food and many others,^3,4 as well as stores in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland⁵ and Canada.⁶ As of October 2020, the company had also received regulatory approval in Kenya, Uganda, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador.⁷ Apeel-treated produce can be identified by looking for the following produce stickers.

Red Flags

One of the warning flags that makes me question the safety of this product is the fact that Apeel Sciences (a DBA or “doing business as” of aPEEL Technology Inc.) was founded with a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.⁸ That’s never a good sign. I can’t think of a single harmless product Gates has ever willingly poured his money into.

Other investors include the Rockefeller Foundation;⁹ the World Bank Group; Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of the personal genomics company 23andMe; and Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube¹⁰ (she stepped down in mid-February 2023¹¹). By May 2021, Apeel Sciences was valued at $1.1 billion.¹²

What’s more, Apeel Science’s founder, James Rogers, Ph.D., is an agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum¹³ (WEF). Among the articles he has written for the WEF is one in which he hailed COVID lockdowns as a model for future action on climate change.¹⁴ In other words, climate lockdowns.

Rogers is also a WEF Young Global Leader¹⁵ — yet another red flag. And I’m not the only one questioning the motives behind this product. “Is [Apeel] another Gates/WEF plot to destroy our health? Or a distraction from worse plots?” Baden-Mayer asks.¹⁶

Is Apeel Part of President Biden’s GMO Agenda?

One of the first things that came to mind when I heard of Apeel is that it fits right into President Biden’s recently launched agenda to turn the U.S. food supply over to the biotechnology industry. I reviewed this agenda in “Executive Order Lays Foundation for Lab-Created Foods.”

In summary, Biden’s September 2022 “Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy”¹⁷ makes biotechnology a national priority across agencies and branches of government, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In late March 2023, Biden expanded on this premise in a “Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing” report.¹⁸ One of the specific goals listed in this report is “Reducing food waste by 50% by 2030.” Reducing food waste to combat climate change¹⁹ is also the premise upon which Apeel Sciences was founded, according to its website.²⁰

Further evidence that Apeel Sciences fits into Biden’s biotech-driven food agenda is its acquisition of ImpactVision, “a software company that uses AI and machine learning to track the chemical composition of food throughout its shelf life.”²¹ The company has also promised to “double down on technology” through other tech acquisitions.

While reducing food waste and making fresh produce last longer are certainly sane and worthy goals, the question is, how is this being done? Seeing how Apeel’s emergence broadly coincides with Biden’s official transition into biotech-led foods, can we trust that it’s a food-based product? Or is it biotech in disguise?

What Does Apeel’s GRAS Notice Tell Us?

According to Apeel Sciences:

“Apeel adds a little extra peel on produce to slow the rate of water loss and oxidation … That extra peel is completely edible, tasteless and safe to eat. A variety of plant feedstocks can be used to create our formulations, and luckily these ingredients exist in the peels, seeds and pulp of all fruits an vegetables …

We think of these materials as building blocks, restructuring them in a way that allows us to iterate on what nature created, making our solution into a coating that can be applied to produce. So while nature is our foundation and inspiration, innovation and technology are how we apply these ingredients …”

Apeel Sciences’ Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notice²² to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, submitted in October 2019, gives us a little more. The primary component of the coating is said to be a mixture of monoacylglycerides derived from grapeseed.

An earlier GRAS Notice,²³ filed in April 2016, further specifies that the two primary components of Apeel is 2,3-dihydroxypropyl palmitate and 1,3-dihydroxypropan-2-yl palmitate. (In this notice, the product is called “Edipeel,” but the website now refers to it as “Apeel,” like the company name.) According to the 2016 GRAS Notice No. 648:

“Monoacylglycerol derivatives are components of dietary fats commonly found in food and are also endogenously formed in the human body … It is well established and recognized that monoacylglycerides, the subject of the present GRAS assessment, are formed in the gastrointestinal tract from the generally accepted metabolic pathway for the breakdown of triglycerides (i.e., lipolysis).

The hydrolysis of triglycerides by lipases proceeds through the formation of monoacylglycerides (i.e., monoglycerides). The free fatty acids released can be further used for triglyceride synthesis.

Given the metabolic sequel described above, and by applying scientific procedures, it can be concluded that a mixture of monoacylglycerides would not pose any health hazards different from commonly consumed dietary oils derived from plants or animals.”

Toxic Residues

However, just because something is made from all-natural ingredients doesn’t mean the final product is perfectly safe. It depends on what you’ve done to those ingredients.

In this case, in Part 3 of the 2019 GRAS notice,²⁴ under Maximum Limit of Residues, we find that the grape seed oil that makes up the basis of this product contains residues of ethyl acetate, heptane and palladium, which are processing aids, as well as the heavy metals arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury.

According to Apeel, the levels of these toxic residues are either below levels deemed safe by the FDA, the EU and/or the Joint FAO/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). The following table lists the maximum daily exposure limits based on a maximum daily (90th percentile) intake of 218 milligrams per person per day.

While the levels indeed appear to be very low, I would argue that any exposure to toxic chemicals and metals is an unnecessary risk. To me, intentionally coating fresh, unadulterated foods with something that contains toxins, even if in minute amounts, only adds to the toxic burden. We’re already dealing with pesticide residues on conventional fruits and vegetables. This coating will simply lock those toxins in and add additional ones on top.

One of the biggest question marks is whether this coating can penetrate the peel, as the coating cannot be washed off. Can toxic risks be eliminated by peeling the produce, or is the flesh of the fruit or vegetable also contaminated with residues? We do not have the answer to that question, even though it’s one of the most important ones.

According to Apeel Sciences, the coating is “not expected” to penetrate beyond the peel into the fruit.²⁵ Not expected? That means they have no idea. They’re simply guessing.

More Open Questions….