In Vietnam, Washington apples are prized for more than taste

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – A shrine adorned in rich mahogany greets customers at the doorway of many businesses in this historic city in southern Vietnam. Incense curls into the humid air. Food items sit as offerings at the center of the shrine.

Among the most popular: apples from Washington.

However, these apples aren’t just for eating. Instead, they are meticulously selected as worthy offerings to honor ancestors and invite blessings. And Washington’s Cosmic Crisp apple is proving its worth to Vietnamese consumers.

Washington state exports of Cosmic Crisp apples to Vietnam have more than quadrupled in the past couple of years. In the 2023-24 season, roughly 80,000 40-pound boxes of Cosmic Crisps were exported to Vietnam. In the 2024-25 season, that number jumped to over 376,000 boxes, according to statistics from the Washington Apple Commission.

This spike in popularity isn’t just because the Cosmic Crisp is new and tasty. Its appeal is rooted in alignment with Vietnamese culture.

Fruit serves as a common offering at shrines in businesses and in homes. According to tradition, when people place offerings at the shrine and light the incense, they are inviting spirits of ancestors or gods to partake in seeing, smelling and tasting the fruit. In exchange, these spirits can offer protection to the space and to family.

Tết, or Lunar New Year, is the most celebrated holiday in Vietnam. Tết celebrates the coming of spring and honors family and ancestors. The festivities surrounding the Tết holiday begin weeks in advance, during which apple sales are at their highest.

One store manager said apple sales increase by 30% to 40% during the holiday.

The fruit is commonly gifted to family members and friends and found in gift baskets during Tết. While in the United States, people may buy an apple just based on taste, color is the top priority for Vietnamese consumers , specifically the red, which symbolizes luck, happiness and prosperity, said Kim Min Gu, director of Hand & Hand, a Ho Chi Minh City fruit distribution company. The deeper and more vibrant the red, the more desirable the apple. The largest and reddest apples are often the ones given as offerings or in gift baskets.

Red Delicious used to be among the most popular apples for offerings, but they go bad quickly and the skin is thin. Red Delicious made up 50% of Washington state’s apple production in the 1990s and 2000s but has since dropped significantly.

Cosmic Crisp is among the apple varieties filling that gap. Cosmic Crisps stand out due to their red color, flavor and long-lasting shelf life. They can be kept in cold-storage facilities for up to a year, which makes it easier to ship them internationally. Plus, thanks to the genetics of one of its parent apples, the Enterprise, it’s slower to brown than many other apple varieties. Its status as a “United States exclusive” apple is especially appealing to Vietnamese customers.

“I avoid Chinese apples, and I love apples … from the West,” said Linh Lee, a Vietnamese consumer attending a Cosmic Crisp informational event in Ho Chi Minh City.

When it comes to apples, Vietnamese consumers tend to prioritize an apple’s appearance. The Cosmic Crisp’s color – red with white speckling – could be seen as a disadvantage by some, Min Gu said.

“It was so smart for the team to say the white spots were stars,” Min Gu said, praising the selection of the name Cosmic Crisp. “Otherwise, consumers wouldn’t buy it because they could be seen as a defect.”

Gu explained that consumers, particularly in southern Vietnam, don’t value the balance of sweet and sour. They categorize an apple as either sweet or sour, crisp or not crisp, and tend to value sweetness. This can make it difficult for new apples, such as the Cosmic Crisp, to break through – since many people in southern Vietnam think it is somewhat sour. About 80% of the Cosmic Crisps exported to Vietnam last year were sent to Hanoi and other cities in the northern part of the country.

“This is due to the history of Vietnamese culture,” said Francis Lee, the Washington Apple Commission’s longtime trade representative in Vietnam. “In the North … it’s more conservative, more cultural. They like bigger; they like to give and give during occasion. And so, they may prefer a bigger-sized apple to be in a gift box or to be in a gift basket, to make it more presentable. (In) the southern market, they also do big, but only on occasion. Like going to make an offering … But (they want) an eating apple, a smaller size, maybe just right for one … we are trying to market both.”

Vietnam can be a difficult market for international exporters to navigate, since consumers’ values in produce differ greatly compared to consumers in the United States. Not only do Washington growers have to consider shipping and storage conditions for apples, which can take two months of travel before reaching Vietnam, but also must consider the quality of apples they are shipping.

If the color of the apple is off, it will be the difference between the variety selling or not – no matter how much rapport the apple has built for flavor.

“Each culture, food preferences are different,” Lee, of the apple commission, said. “We understand that to have a better export market (in Vietnam), we have to have the right color … That understanding is how you facilitate the volume and grow.”

Arlo Popa and photographer Andrew Perdue reported this story as part of Washington State University’s Backpack Journalism program, a donor-funded program which sends journalism students to foreign locales to report stories.