
Getting people to buy imperfect produce - dsr12
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/17/success/imperfect-produce/index.html
======
aluminussoma
Is the Ugly Fruit problem a myth? The crop scientist Sarah Taber argues it is
a myth: [https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/26/18240399/food-
waste-...](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/26/18240399/food-waste-ugly-
produce-myths-farms)

I'm too far removed from the situation to make an educated call but I am
inclined to believe her.

~~~
davidw
Article doesn't contain the word 'taste', which is my take on the problem. I'd
rather people were breeding produce for taste rather than being pretty on
shelves and easy to transport. In Italy, produce on the shelves is generally
not as pretty as here, but it tastes better.

Other than that, though, valuable information.

~~~
pfranz
Personally, I agree. I think that's a food culture and logistics situation.
Most of these kinds of efforts are on reducing food waste, which is in line
with shelf-stable, unbrusable food.

I have suspicions that because of the young age and the frontier culture of
much of US history, the US doesn't have much of a fresh/healthy food culture.
I also think the past couple generations of microwaved/processed foods (which
has their own benefits) and more recent improvements in year-round food has
erased what little cultural knowledge of seasonal and local foods we had.
There are a few movements, like Alice Waters, making some change, but I think
in general it's very lacking compared to many other countries.

Farmer's markets are where you can find fresher, more seasonal food. They
often carry a lot more varieties. Including ones that either aren't familiar
enough to the average person, or lack the shelf-life and durability of the
mainstream varieties.

~~~
davidw
I definitely think things are changing for the better in the US, slowly but
surely. When I was a kid, "parmesan cheese" was that green shit in a can.

Now, even here in remote, small-ish Bend, Oregon, I can get real Parmigiano
Reggiano at Costco at a reasonable price.

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RussianCow
My wife and I tried Imperfect Produce for a few months, and we were very
disappointed with it. For one, an alarmingly large portion of our produce came
expired (not just bruised or misshaped or anything like that, but outright
expired, even moldy in some instances). And if that wasn't enough, we
consistently had mistakes in our orders—things we ordered wouldn't arrive at
all, with no notice, and we would sometimes get produce we didn't order. Their
customer service issued us a refund + credit in every instance, which makes me
think this is a regular occurence, but after the about the 5th mistake we
decided we had had enough.

And even if everything had gone swimmingly for us, their selection is
incredibly inconsistent, and their prices on some items were barely better
than those at our local New Seasons (which isn't known for low prices). Plus,
the delivery time is a pretty large window that ends late into the evening, so
you can't rely on the produce for your dinner that day.

I love the idea, but they have a lot of issues they need to sort out first. I
personally was put off by it and would never try it again or recommend it to
anyone.

~~~
roywiggins
At that point, you should just buy a real CSA share, instead of Imperfect
Produce, which is sort of trying to be a fake CSA.

[https://www.localharvest.org/csa/](https://www.localharvest.org/csa/)

~~~
RussianCow
I haven't looked into it in years, but last I checked, CSA shares where I live
are really expensive for what you get. And at that point, I'd rather just get
my produce at the local New Seasons—it's much more consistent and convenient,
and the quality of their seasonal produce is really good in my experience.

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foxhop
It's a myth in the USA.

Ugly food doesn't make it to the store, it becomes something else which has a
longer shelf life.

Food past it's prime goes into the dumpster, without any chance of a discount
or price reduction.

Source: The organic potatoes I tried to buy from ALDI which were very sprouted
because it was the end of winter begining of sprint and the spuds wanted to
grow into plants but the clerk's manager told me, "I can sell them to your for
full price, or I have to throw them away."

Writing an email to ALDI corp yielded no response on this matter.

I am a gardener, I could have prevented food waste in this situation.

~~~
londons_explore
Employees selling discounted goods to friends is a big source of losses for
many retail shops.

That's why they normally have very rigid discounting rules. Discounts are
allowed on the day of expiry for example, and the discount percentage is based
on how many hours till closing time.

If the goods are bruised and not yet on the day of expiry, they don't allow
discounting, although the product can be binned.

Some food gets wasted, but employee fraud would be far larger any other way.

~~~
nashashmi
Employee fraud can actually be an employee perk. I worked at a grocery
supermarket before. No perks or discounts are offered to employees. Sub
quality food is actually a great perk.

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exabrial
Very little produce actually goes to waste... What do you think stoufers puts
in their frozen stews? Where do you get carrot cubes in your soups? Where do
you get bananas for your strawberry banana smoothies? Where does tomato paste
come from?

The nicest looking stuff is put on the shelf and the ugly stuff is just ground
up into your everyday food items.

~~~
avip
I'm holding a dataset (not from the US), let's go over it. Numbers are in
%weight from initial produce. Loss is an actual final loss - products left in
fields.

Cucumber: 30%

tomato, strawberry, peppers: 10%

Eggplant: 20%

Kolorabbi: 25%

~~~
iamnothere
Gleaning needs to make a comeback, perhaps?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning)

Edit: Not trying to be flippant, I really think people should promote this. If
some produce gets regularly left behind, let people come in to pick it up and
either use or distribute it.

~~~
avip
Gleaning was great when we had villages with small fields interleaved. It's
impractical and irrelevant the way modern industrial agriculture is
structured.

~~~
roywiggins
Gleaning is still a thing.

[http://endhunger.org/gleaning-network/](http://endhunger.org/gleaning-
network/)

[https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda_glea...](https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda_gleaning_toolkit.pdf)

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tty2300
I don't think most people have a problem with eating imperfect fruit. If I
picked an apple from my tree and half of it was bad I would cut it in half and
eat the other half. But if I see a half ruined apple at a supermarket I will
pick a good one because they are both the same price.

~~~
avip
The more relevant aspect is people who see half-ruined fruits at a grocery
step outside and go to another one. It's mainly the big supermarkets who
refuse to buy mixed quality produce.

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pfranz
I get that it's a problem that farmers breed pretty and durable produce at the
expense of flavor, but my understanding is that "imperfect produce" is
generally sorted and used for juicing and other processed ingredients. They
wouldn't care about aesthetics of raw food.

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mmmeff
Spam. This company is such a ripoff. You get mostly normal produce at average
prices. There's literally no point. Just go to the grocery store...

~~~
roywiggins
> The company, they argued, is not in the business of food waste so much food
> surplus: It buys excess products that farmers can’t sell to supermarkets,
> but could sell to restaurants, canned and processed food companies, or, as a
> last resort, donate to food banks. “The stuff in these boxes is not ending
> up in a landfill,” co-author Max Cadji, the founder of Phat Beets Produce,
> told me. “They’re just tapping into the same marketplace as the guys who
> make shredded carrots.”

[https://newrepublic.com/article/152596/hungry-harvest-box-
ug...](https://newrepublic.com/article/152596/hungry-harvest-box-ugly-produce-
help-planet-or-hurt-it)

~~~
whymsicalburito
Isn't this very similar to how Grocery Outlet operates?

~~~
roywiggins
And farmer's markets, but... quietly.

[https://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-
fable/fa...](https://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-
fable/farmers-markets/)

~~~
FiatLuxDave
That was a very well written and researched article. As a Florida produce
consumer, thank you for linking that.

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apazzolini
My fiancee specifically looks for and buys the imperfect produce when she goes
to the market. She sees it as an easy way to reduce food waste as there are a
lot of people who specifically avoid ugly vegetables.

~~~
aitchnyu
I'll have to train my mind to overcome my subconscious bias to ugly fruits
while looking at other criteria.

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Theodores
200,000 customers is 200,000 customers more than me.

I like the founding story - inspired by the food waste at a canteen - but that
waste has not always been wasted. Before we got into a problem feeding cows to
cows the slops from canteens were fed to pigs.

And we all know that those ready meals are not made from ingredients as
beautiful as those shown on the labels.

In some parts of the world you get the likes of Lidl, Aldi and the market in
town selling 'Class 2' produce - the ugly stuff. But a big box of Class 2 veg
in your home - how long is that going to last before you need to throw it out?

Spending $115 to get a box of the stuff three times a week for a family of
five works out as the organic large box. The non-organic stuff does not add up
to that, so either they are on the premium large box and chomping the stuff
down or they are adjusting their order a lot.

Maybe the money to be made is in customisations to the box?

But they still are not in profit and have taken $47 million in funding. I know
they have to have the vans but can't vans be financed as you go rather than
paid for up front? And isn't the 'ugly' produce going to be discarded anyway
so therefore tantamount to being 'free'? I am surprised that anyone has
invested so much in this uber-esque land grab.

People need to do all their shopping for groceries and not just the veg if one
of the green goals is to have less driving, but all these veg delivery things
just add more vans and lorries on the roads.

Call me cynical but I doubt that they are serving working class poor families
that can't afford cars. I suspect they are facilitating another way for people
to consume and another VC funded runway with exit plan. They could sell out to
Amazon Whole Foods if those 200,000 people come back for more.

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andrewstuart
I noticed yesterday that the produce I buy from the asian grocery is cheaper
than the supermarket.

It's also bigger. I wonder if the produce gets sorted into smaller stuff to
the supermarkets and bigger to the discount produce retailers.

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viraptor
Supermarkets seem to change their approach too. Woolworths has it's own brand
of "odd bunch"
[https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/search/products?searchTer...](https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/search/products?searchTerm=odd%20bunch)
which is the imperfect produce at lower prices. You can buy it right next to
the standard ones.

And from the customer side, that's much easier than a subscription service.

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hiei
This service is great if you are constantly cooking and/or consuming the
entire box. It became difficult to keep up with orders and 2-3 boxes went to
waste. I stopped after realizing exactly what I wanted to consume and just
went to store when I needed it. It was great in that I lived next to a store.
Felt like I was "contributing" by using this service but it appears as other
commenters have said that this food normally did not go to waste in the first
place.

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harimau777
My problem with buying imperfect produce is that I cannot tell what
imperfections are a problem (mold, rot, contains insects, etc.) and I don't
really trust a corporation not to sell me something unsafe/disgusting.

(I say disgusting because even though I realize that something like fruit
containing insects likely wouldn't harm me that's something I'm just not okay
with.)

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iamthepieman
We use a service like this. We live in a rural area and going to the grocery
store is a 20 minute drive. Getting organic produce delivered to your door at
non organic prices is a win win for us. We stock up at bulk stores for more
shelf stable goods and only go the grocery store a few times a month.

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taborj
"People generally didn't buy something in grocery stores that was dinged,
scratched or otherwise marred. They'd eat stuff that had so little nutrition
that they might as well eat the box but woe-betide if the box was crushed."

\-- John Ringo, "Live Free or Die"

