evidence: As they do so, they build a kind of film that locks in moisture and repels oxygen. So Apeel has developed a substance, which they either spray on fruit or dip the fruit in, that exploits this relationship between lipid molecules you find naturally in fruits. "When we deposit them on a piece of produce and it dries, the result is that we form this special structure, this special barrier, which mimics that structure which is employed by longer shelf life produce," says Rogers. Apeel isn’t inventing a newfangled substance. It's using the plant kingdom’s own evolved defense against our trifecta of maladies. By coating produce with interacting molecules, they create a microclimate within the fruit to keep good actors in and bad actors out.