The Truth About the Last Two Years

When people ask what it’s been like at Apeel these last two years, I usually pause. There isn’t a neat answer. This work has been the kind that lifts you and knocks the wind out of you at the same time.

I joined Apeel because the company’s mission is badly needed: use nature to keep food fresh so more people can afford and access real, healthy produce. What struck me from the start wasn’t just the technology, but the intent. Every ingredient, every process, every safety review was treated with an almost monastic level of care by James, Lou, Jenny, and the early team. Safety, transparency, and public trust weren’t slogans. They were the roots of the company.

To watch those same founders become targets of a coordinated disinformation campaign was one of the hardest experiences of my career. This was a deliberate effort to twist a decade of careful work into something frightening. False narratives were manufactured. Posts appeared across platforms in identical language. Misused documents and doctored images spread with uncanny timing and reach. Once falsehoods gather momentum, they outrun the truth and they outrun the people who built the thing in the first place.

Watching James, Lou and Jenny endure that — knowing how carefully they built this company, how much they prioritized safety, how deeply they cared about reducing hunger and increasing access — was painful in a way I hadn’t expected. They deserved debate, rigor, and accountability, yes. They did not deserve to be vilified by forces that had no interest in the facts.

Letting people go because of manufactured fear is the kind of moment that stays with you. These were colleagues who believed fiercely in the mission. These were people who stayed late in the lab, solved impossible engineering problems, built relationships across the supply chain, and believed in a simple idea: fresh, healthy food should be accessible to more people. Their work lives on in every piece of produce we protect.

You learn quickly that truth doesn’t defend itself. You either defend it or you watch it get rewritten. This means showing the science, explaining the ingredients, meeting people where the misinformation spreads, and ideally naming the bad actors who profit from confusion. It means moving with the discipline of a company that understands exactly what it’s fighting and why.

Apeel was founded on a simple premise: science, inspired by nature, can create more abundance for more people. That hasn’t changed. Our products remain safe, rigorously validated, and held to some of the strictest regulatory standards in the world. The truth is this fight is bigger than Apeel. If coordinated disinformation can sideline innovation in food, it puts every family who depends on fresh produce at risk. It props up food deserts. It worsens insecurity. It keeps the cost of healthy eating out of reach. Without post-harvest tools like ours, millions lose access to the very thing they say they want: fresh, safe, affordable food for their families.

We’re still here.
We’re still building.
We’re still standing on science, safety, and transparency.
And we’re still committed to a food system defined by abundance, not scarcity.

I’m proud—quietly, firmly proud—to be part of this mission. Apeel represents something rare in this moment: American innovation determined to make life better, even when the truth has to fight its way through the noise to be heard.

What gives me confidence now is knowing that Apeel is finally positioned to do what it was built for: transform the way the world grows, moves, and accesses fresh food. The technology is ready, the need is urgent, and the opportunity in front of us is bigger than anything we’ve attempted before. We have a real chance to reshape the food system so families everywhere can access healthier food at lower cost—and do it in a way that reduces waste, strengthens supply chains, and builds abundance. That’s the future I believe in, and it’s why I’m here.

— Luiz

Food Fight is a space for honest conversation about the post-harvest industry, the challenges created by coordinated disinformation, and the work Apeel Sciences is doing to restore trust and choice in the food system. We focus on transparency, science, and American innovation, sharing updates, context, and insights that help explain what is on our food and why it matters. Our mission is to help build a future where consumers have clearer information, better options, and a food system that reflects both integrity and progress.

To learn more about Apeel, visit our website at apeel.com and follow our latest updates on Instagram, X, and LinkedIn.