Care to know where the company behind the Mac OS “grows” the apples for its retail store logos? A recent ifoAppleStore piece sheds light on the topic, revealing that Apple has them retail logos made over at The Thomas Swan Sign Co., Inc., a company that's been in business for almost a century and a half.

“You don’t simply plant an apple seed, watch the bees pollinate and then wait three years for an Apple logo to be picked,” one of the most recent ifoAppleStore posts reads. Ifo deals exclusively with information about Apple's retail stores, and that includes the iconic logo resembling a partially bitten apple.

“You entrust that job to a company,” the report continues. “In this case, Apple’s ultra-famous logos are produced by a small, 132-year-old company set behind an iron fence in the industrial area of Richmond (N. Calif.). The Thomas Swan Sign Co., Inc. was born in old San Francisco, and now is on its second family and third generation of owners. It employs 35 workers who design and manufacture all types of signs in almost any material.”

OK, so that's quite a number of companies that rely on it, but we're only interested in one.

“For Apple’s stores, the company makes the white, backlit logos that mark the storefront, their associated hardware and lighting boxes,” the post finally reveals. “They also manufacture the backlit logos that appear behind the Genius Bars,” ifo explains. According to the informational report, The Thomas Swan Sign Co., Inc. also has Pixar, Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn listed as “clients” for logo manufacturing.

To learn more about the history of the Apple logo, and other “did you know” facts about the company responsible for the Macintosh, iPhone and iPod, skim through the related links. You can also submit your comments (or contact the news editor) with interesting / strange facts about Apple, which can be worked up into a “Did You Know” piece on Softpedia's Mac section.