Reading the report on the BBC website, it seems the airline was at fault for not saying you could not take airline food off the aeroplane, and the border seems to have been unnecessarily tough about not giving the passenger the chance to dump the apple. In Aust and NZ, there are very prominent bins with reminders about the laws.
Leather goods are a red herring, since they are so heavily processed that there is no chance that they will introduce cattle diseases. Normally, a red herring would be OK, because processed, but you should still declare it.