What Exactly is Winter Pack
By Juliaacv
@Juliaacv (57564)
Canada
September 20, 2026 12:13pm CST
We meet here from all corners of the world. Different climates and ways of storing food. In particular I am referring to apples and winter pack methods that are used to enjoy fresh apples all during the year.
So, first question is pretty basic, why is it done? So that we can enjoy fresh apples during the coldest months of the season when the trees are bare.
And how is it done? For this I had to look up an orchard's website that we like to go to. I knew the basics, but this goes a bit further.
Apple season, in my neck of the woods, is about the last major fruit to come into season. And there are so many different varieties to choose from.
What the orchard does is they keep back about 1,000 bins of apples each season. they are headed for the cold storage room. This cold storage room has a temperature maintained at 0C or 32F consistently. This alone allows the apples to stay fresh until January/February.
If we want apples beyond that, we grab from the bins that were stored in the cold storage that has a low oxygen atmosphere. Most of the oxygen is drawn out of this room and within 90 days the apples taste as fresh as the day they were picked.
The air in this room does not have enough oxygen to support human life. The oxygen is replaced with nitrogen. This puts the apples into a suspended state, where they do not ripen.
So, that fresh tasting apple that you ate during a snow storm in February or March, really was fresh. Make sense?
10 people like this
10 responses
@RasmaSandra (101089)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
7h
Sounds like my MIL cellar in Latvia, The cellar actually had ice along the walls in the winter, She stored apples, potatoes, and many things she put up herself and they could be eaten all winter,
3 people like this
@toniganzon (81245)
• Philippines
5h
Interesting. I remember back in the 80s we would usually see apples being sold in the market only in December. They come mostly from California. The label says so.
But these days, we see apple every single day all year long. But no, we don't grow apples in this country at all. The apples come from Japan, South Korea, etc.
I'm not a fan of apple though except the Apple gadgets.
2 people like this
@rebelann (118764)
• El Paso, Texas
9h
I suppose. The problem is I haven't been in a snow situation since 2015 and even then it was only about a half inch which melted long before 10am, it was just for one day.
I don't really want to know what your kind of winter is. Here many of the long time locals complain about the cold if it gets below 4c which isn't all that often during a decade.
2 people like this
@Juliaacv (57564)
• Canada
10h
They cannot allow the public back into the cold storage.
But I knew that those places used to be very lucrative because my uncle owned a cold storage when I was a very young child. I think that his was used for cold storage of beef that was waiting to be butchered, and wrapped.
2 people like this
@snowy22315 (213054)
• United States
11h
It does. I guess I haved heard the words winter pack but didn't know anything about it.
2 people like this
@celticeagle (194100)
• Boise, Idaho
8h
Sounds interesting. Airtight containers is helping us to store pasta, rice and such.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (388635)
• Rockingham, Australia
3h
That's really interesting. Thanks for the information. Years back, we reckoned we could tell if an apple had been in cold storage but I think perhaps the storage methods are better now.
