In the very early '60s my mother had one of the first freezers - it was an ice cream one, second hand from a shop. It had two oval lids on the top and was deeper than anyone's arm length. Getting things out of the bottom was impossible without the washing machine tongs
We had no idea about freezer burn, or about blanching veggies and so on. Back then people didn't use freezers, they cooked everything from fresh, except perhaps some butcher's pies. Within about 10 years from then, chest freezers became available and most food was wrapped in plastic (the first cling film came in made by Dow chemicals (US) about the same time as the ice cream freezer we had, but we couldn't think of any uses for it!
What I use now is a hotchpotch of freezer bags and freezer pots from Lakeland. They make some very simple square ones with different coloured lids (not the clip-on lid kind) which come in three different sizes and are easy to stack. I find square pots better than round for efficiency. For fruit and veg I tend to open freeze, then transfer to portion size bags ie as much as we will eat in one meal, or I pack small bags lightly then shuffle the contents around once they are frozen and extract the air. I wonder if you could do that with the grated apple? Sprinkle it loosely over a tray and freeze for a couple of hours then transfer to a plastic box. It would not be totally free running like peas but might be better than in a block. I use the boxes for, amongst other things such as soups and stews, freezing berries such as raspberries, blueberries, brambles, blackcurrants and so on for sprinkling on breakfast cereals or ice cream (not for me as I don't eat anything with sugar in, just the unsweetened fruit itself) but I've not tried apples. I shall be interested to hear how successful they are.
Our freezer has quite a lot of meat in which is not possible to store neatly, and if it's packed too closely then it can prove impossible to get back out once it's frozen solid