The apple she keeps for her child

A message reached us from a customer. It was short, and we haven't stopped thinking about it. Some messages you answer and move on from. This is not one of them.

Ajeeta Meena wrote to tell us about the apples she had ordered. She said they arrived fresh. For people who pick fruit and put it in a box, that is the sentence you hope to read.

Then she told us something we had not expected.

What it means to be that apple

We grow and pack apples for a living, so we know how it sounds when a seller says trust us. Everyone says it. Nobody can check.

We don't have a shop. You can't pick up one of our apples, turn it over, smell it. You order from a screen, and a few days later a box arrives from a village you may never see, sent by people you have never met.

So when a mother decides that this box is the one safe enough for her little child, that isn't a purchase. It is trust, handed across a very long distance, on the strength of a few photographs and a promise.

What we promised, and what we didn't

We won't tell you what is or isn't on the apple at the market. We haven't tested every shelf, and it isn't ours to say.

What we can tell you is what is on ours.

The apples in Ajeeta's box were picked after she ordered, packed by hand, and sent. That is all. That nothing is the whole product, and it is the only thing we have ever really been selling.

The part we think about

A little child doesn't know any of this. They don't know about wax, or cold stores, or how far an apple has travelled. They just bite.

Somebody else decides what goes into that bite. They decide it quietly, in a kitchen, every single day.

We are grateful, and a little afraid in the best way, because it means every box we send now has to be one we would hand to a child.