Lots of stuff that says 50-55 F which is unfortunate because most people don’t have any kind of storage at that temp.
They are, it's just long before they're put out on display. That's how they manage to have fresh New York state apples in February.
They also pull out the oxygen: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/11/26/668256349/th...
> The perfect combination of temperature and gases, which differs for each variety, allows apples to stay fresh for longer after harvest than if they were simply refrigerated. Commercially refrigerating apples only preserves the fruit for a few months before it gets soft and dehydrated. And just keeping them in your home refrigerator? They'll likely only stay fresh for a few weeks.
I would suppose the grocer's tradeoff is slightly different than yours. For them, it ought to be about trading shelf-life extension against refrigeration costs. For me, I'd rather extend the shelf-life of the apple even if it costs more to refrigerate it than it would to buy a new one, because I dislike throwing out food. I even freeze some produce that is about to go bad if I don't have an immediate plan for it.
Maybe this is for untreated apples? But still those values for apples looks surprisingly low.