Why storing potatoes near this common fruit makes them sprout and taste odd sooner

A bowl of fruit, a sack of spuds, and a clear bit of counter space. In most kitchens, they all end up together by default. A few days later, the apples look fine, but the potatoes have grown knobbly white shoots and roast up with a faintly sweet, off flavour.

You didn’t suddenly buy worse potatoes. You accidentally sped them up.

Hidden in that cosy corner is a simple chemistry lesson: some fruits quietly breathe out a gas that tells nearby produce to ripen, age, and, in the case of potatoes, wake up from their planned “winter sleep” far sooner than you wanted.

The quiet gas that hurries potatoes along

The main culprit has a name: ethylene. It’s a natural plant hormone, a colourless gas that fruits like apples, bananas, pears, and avocados release as they ripen. In the right context, it’s useful. It helps rock‑hard pears soften and green bananas turn golden.

For potatoes, it’s the opposite of helpful. Potatoes are harvested in a dormant state, designed to sit cool and dark for weeks or months. Ethylene drifting over from a fruit bowl acts like an alarm clock. It nudges them to break dormancy, push out sprouts, and shuffle their internal chemistry.

You don’t see the gas, and you often don’t smell much beyond “general fruitiness”. Yet in a closed cupboard, a pantry drawer, or a crowded worktop, the concentration builds enough to matter. A single busy fruit bowl can be all it takes.

What actually happens inside a potato

Under the skin, a potato is mostly starch and water, with a few natural defences against pests and light. When you park it next to ethylene‑heavy fruit, three things start to change.

First, the potato’s eyes wake up and begin to grow. Sprouting is a sign the tuber thinks it’s time to become a plant again. That growth uses energy, so the potato draws on its starch reserves to feed those shoots.

Second, that starch begins to convert into simple sugars. On paper, more sugar can sound like a good thing, but in cooking it’s a mixed blessing. Chips and roasties brown faster, sometimes too fast, going from golden to bitter dark patches while the centre is still catching up.

Third, as the potato stresses and ages, levels of certain natural toxins, such as solanine, can rise-especially near green patches and heavy sprouting. You’re still in everyday kitchen territory, not crime drama, but it does mean you should trim or bin anything that’s gone very far past its best.

The net effect at the table: potatoes that cook unevenly, taste oddly sweet or slightly bitter, and never quite crisp or mash the way you expect.

Why apples are the usual suspect (and who else to watch)

In many British kitchens, apples are the quiet ethylene workhorse. They’re cheap, they sit out at room temperature, and by late week they’re ripening enthusiastically. One bowl of mixed eating apples can surround a nearby bag of potatoes with a low, steady fog of ethylene.

They’re not alone, though. A handy mental list:

• High ethylene producers: apples, bananas, pears, avocados, mangoes, peaches, nectarines, kiwis, tomatoes.
• Moderate producers: plums, melons, passion fruit.
• Low producers: citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, limes), berries, grapes.

Citrus is a safer neighbour. Apples and bananas are not. If you’ve ever noticed your bananas racing through the yellow stage in a mixed fruit bowl, that’s the same story playing out in fast‑forward.

Where to draw the line in your kitchen

As a rule of thumb: if it ripens from hard to soft on the counter, treat it as a likely ethylene source. If it arrives already ready to eat and doesn’t change much (oranges, for instance), it’s usually a gentler presence.

That simple rule is enough to decide who should never share a shelf with your spuds.

A simple storage plan that keeps potatoes calm

You don’t need fancy gadgets to fix this, just a bit of separation and the right conditions. Potatoes like cool, dark, dry, and slightly boring.

• Keep potatoes:

  • In a paper bag, hessian sack, or ventilated box.
  • Somewhere cool and dark: a pantry, cupboard away from the oven, or a cellar if you’re lucky.
  • Away from direct sunlight and away from your main fruit bowl.

• Keep high‑ethylene fruits:

  • On the counter but a few metres away from potatoes.
  • In a fruit bowl that isn’t tucked into the same cupboard or corner shelf as your veg.
  • In the fridge if they’re already ripe and you want to slow them down (apples, kiwis, some pears).

What to avoid: plastic bags with no ventilation for potatoes, warm spots next to dishwashers or cookers, and stacking potatoes under a fruit bowl “to save space”. That tidy little tower is exactly the layout that makes them sprout in days.

Quick read: who can share space with whom

Keep together	Keep apart	Why it matters
Potatoes + onions (separate bags, same cool cupboard)	Potatoes + apples/bananas	Fruit releases ethylene; potatoes age and sprout
Potatoes + root veg (carrots, parsnips, beetroot)	Potatoes + ripe avocados/pears	Roots are calm, fruits are not
Apples + bananas (ripen each other)	Potatoes + mixed fruit bowl	One bowl gases the other

Onions deserve a tiny footnote. They don’t pump out ethylene like apples, but they do like similar cool, dry conditions. Keep them from physically touching potatoes, as onion moisture and aromas can still speed general spoilage. Same cupboard, separate bags is fine.

Spotting when your potatoes have gone too far

A few short, firm sprouts on an otherwise sound, unwrinkled potato are mostly a storage nudge: cut the shoots away, peel if you like, and use promptly. Heavy fruit exposure just means you’ve reached this stage sooner than you’d planned.

More worrying signs:

• Long, pale, or green‑tinged sprouts all over the tuber.
• Large green patches on the skin.
• A strong bitter taste or a musty smell once cut.
• Wrinkled, soft, or shrivelled texture.

At that point, you’re beyond “slightly tired” and well into “best binned”. If you have to carve away half the potato, it’s no longer worth salvaging.

When in doubt, remember: potatoes are cheap, food poisoning is not. Discard the worst and improve your storage so the next batch lasts longer without drama.

Turning the same trick to your advantage

The odd twist is that the very process that ruins your potatoes can help elsewhere. Ethylene is a handy tool if you use it on purpose.

• To ripen rock‑hard avocados or pears, place them in a paper bag with a ripe apple or banana. Fold loosely. Check daily.
• To colour up green tomatoes at the end of the season, pop them in a box with a ripe banana and leave them in a warm room.
• To keep already‑perfect fruit from overripening too fast, separate it from these “gassy” neighbours or move it into the fridge.

The key is to treat potatoes as the one guest who really doesn’t enjoy that party. Give them their own calm corner, and let the fruits chatter elsewhere.

Small changes, better flavour, less waste

This isn’t a kitchen revolution, just a quiet shuffle of bowls and bags. Move the fruit bowl off the potato cupboard. Switch from plastic to paper for your spuds. Use the high shelf for apples, the low cupboard for root veg.

Two or three tiny tweaks are usually enough to:

• Cut down on sprouting and odd flavours.
• Keep potatoes usable for weeks rather than days.
• Throw away fewer soft, green, or bitter tubers.

You don’t need to think about ethylene every time you make a roast. Set up your storage once, notice how long your next bag of potatoes lasts, and adjust if needed. After that, it fades into the background-quiet chemistry working in your favour, not against your dinner.