Red Delicious is a type of apple with a red exterior and sweet taste that was first recognized in Madison County, Iowa, in 1872. Today, the name Red Delicious comprises more than 50 cultivars. It was the most produced cultivar in the United States from 1968 to 2018, when it was surpassed by Gala. History The 'Red Delicious' originated at an orchard in 1872 as "a round, blushed yellow fruit of surpassing sweetness". Stark Nurseries held a competition in 1892 to find an apple to replace the 'Black Ben Davis' apple. The winner was a red and yellow striped apple sent by Jesse Hiatt, a farmer in Peru, Iowa, who called it "Hawkeye". Stark Nurseries bought the rights from Hiatt, renamed the variety "Stark Delicious", and began propagating it. Another apple tree, later named the 'Golden Delicious', was also marketed by Stark Nurseries after it was purchased from a farmer in Clay County, West Virginia, in 1914; the 'Delicious' became the 'Red Delicious' as a retronym. Selective breeding and decline in demand The apple became a victim of its own popularity. As consumers began to purchase more of their food from large supermarkets, the apple's popularity encouraged commercial growers to increasingly select for longer storage and cosmetic appeal rather than flavor and palatability, which resulted in a less palatable fruit. In particular the selection of redder fruit caused deselection of flavor, and the genes that produced the yellow stripes on the original fruit were on the same chromosomes as those for the flavor-producing compounds. Breeding for uniformity and storability favored a thicker skin. Later, as other cultivars entered supermarkets, demand for the 'Red Delicious' declined. In the 1940s the apple was the most popular in the US. In the 1980s, 'Red Delicious' represented three-quarters of the harvest in Washington state, but the selection of beauty and long storage over taste was making the apples less popular, and demand was declining as supermarkets started carrying other varieties. By the 1990s, reliance on the now-unwanted 'Red Delicious' had helped to push Washington state's apple industry "to the edge" of collapse. In 2000, Congress approved and President Bill Clinton signed a bill to bail out the apple industry, after apple growers had lost $760 million since 1997. Farmers began to replace their orchards with other cultivars such as Gala, Fuji, and Honeycrisp. By 2000, this cultivar made up less than one half of