The Work Beneath the Noise

We’re entering this year with a clearer sense of direction and a lot of work in motion. Inside Apeel, the focus has been on building—new partnerships taking shape, customers expanding their footprint, and teams working through the unglamorous details of moving food through a system that remains largely out of sight. This is the part of the story that rarely gets told, but it is where progress actually happens.

Last year was a big one for us. Our name moved quickly through public channels, from a post by Michelle Pfeiffer to moments on Joe Rogan that repeated intentional disinformation talking points about our company and our products. At the same time, Jenny’s TED Talk became one of the most watched of 2025, bringing a broader audience into a conversation that is usually confined to growers, retailers, and haters.

In a year when AI dominated nearly every major platform and publication, with the Wall Street Journal recently noting that AI investment is now driving roughly half of U.S. GDP growth and TIME naming its 2025 “Person of the Year” as the “Architects of AI,” Jenny’s talk still earned a place among the most-watched TED conversations. The list she landed on is otherwise filled with builders shaping entirely new technological frontiers—from Brent Bornich, who is beta testing humanoid robots in private homes, to Palmer Luckey, whose work has reshaped modern defense through multi-billion-dollar government programs.

Just behind her in the rankings is Aravind Srinivas, founder of Perplexity, one of the most highly valued AI search platforms to date. Not to mention former Vice President, Al Gore. In that context, a conversation about food systems, access, and infrastructure standing alongside the most consequential technologies of this moment says something important about both the reach and the relevance of the mission behind Apeel.

We are focused on building a system where fresh produce travels farther, lasts longer, and reaches more people with less waste along the way.

Creating access to fresh, affordable produce is what drives us to move forward each week. It’s why our team shows up, why we continue to put facts, data, and context into the public record, and why we are committed to telling our side of this Food Fight.

We believe plant-based protection is the future.

If you’re just now hearing about the coordinated disinformation campaign against our company, that’s partly why we launched Food Fight. Over the last few years, a growing ecosystem of viral posts, recycled clips, and misleading claims has tried to reframe a simple idea—protecting fresh produce with plant-based materials—as something it isn’t. This Substack exists to document what’s actually happening in the food system, track where these narratives originate, and publish the primary sources, corrections, and context that tend to disappear once a headline moves on.

If this work resonates, stay connected. Follow us across social and explore our website to see how plant-protected produce fits into the larger question of access, waste, and food system resilience. And when you see false claims repeated online, don’t scroll past them. Say something. Point people to the facts. The work we do shows up in grocery aisles, school lunches, and communities where fresh food is hardest to reach. Getting this right matters for everyday families here and for the millions of people globally who still live on the edge of access.

“How do you do something that’s doing good? We’re all here on borrowed time, you know — our time is finite — so how do you make the most of that? For me, that’s meant finding ways to serve or do good, to elevate our collective quality of life, if possible.

And I guess in the face of opposition, that conviction gets tested — whether or not you stay on the course you’re on.” — Jenny Du, Co-Founder

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.