The startup that tried to fix food waste—and got hit by a disinformation campaign

# Apeel's Cautionary Tale: How Misinformation Can Destroy a Good Idea A promising food-tech startup called Apeel Sciences created a plant-based coating that keeps fruit fresh longer and reduces waste, growing into a billion-dollar company backed by major grocery chains—until false social media claims that it was unsafe caused customers to demand stores stop using it, forcing the company to rebuild from scratch. The incident shows how quickly misleading online rumors, often spread by influencers, can tank even a well-funded company with a genuinely helpful product. It's a real-world example of why false information spreading on social media can be just as damaging to a business as actual product problems.