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> Imperfect Produce claims it’s saving the world by reducing food waste—and helping farmers by buying surplus “ugly” produce that would have been thrown out. So

> Imperfect Produce claims it’s saving the world by reducing food waste—and helping farmers by buying surplus “ugly” produce that would have been thrown out. Sounds great. The reality is that this produce would have otherwise gone to food banks, to be redistributed for free. So I feel for the social cause, and I think the business ventures should be much more up-front about what they are and not masquerade as something else, but let's be clear that buy buying this less than perfect produce, they are helping growers, including small growers, by allowing them to capitalize on more of their crop. Ultimately, if you want your social cause to not be a victim of market forces, you either need to work yourself into the market correctly, divorce yourself form it, or find a segregating line that works. If they were taking monetary donations, or allowing write-offs of the produce at full price (something that conceivably could be supported through targeted legislation), then they might be more competitive here. But since they relied on drowers giving them produce that had little or not value, which now does have some value, they'll see the market respond like anyone else. Again, this doesn't excuse businesses masquerading as social causes (which is nothing new, even if it is loathsome in the worse cases), but this article isn't exactly presenting the case in a balanced light either.

ajkjk 8y ago
Later on it says that it specifically helps only midsize- and larger growers, because small growers don't produce large enough quantities for it to be profitable to purchase from them: "'We want to be able to source at least a truckload from these growers each week, so they have to be at least midsize in most cases.' Imperfect Produce is only able to make a profit by working with the larger global agribusinesses, not the picturesque small and mid-sized farms it projects in its marketing campaign."
- kbenson 8y ago
  I suspect we'll see co-ops of smaller growers to gather this food from members for the purpose of selling in bulk then. If there's a market, and it's worth enough, that's what I would expect to happen, just like it does for other market situations with small growers (e.g. farmers markets). Markets tend to work around inefficiencies like that, just as they worked around the inefficiency of product waste in general here. It's generally best to work with and nudge the market through incentives than to expect it to not behave like expected.
- beat 8y ago
  I have yet to see any food industry marketing anywhere that doesn't create a rosy picture of family farming in its marketing, rather than the factory farms and giant agribusiness that actually supply the vast majority of our food.
dominicr 8y ago
> if you want your social cause to not be a victim of market forces, you either need to work yourself into the market correctly... Social enterprises aren’t responding to a market opportunity in the same way a for profit business is. They are filling a gap that the for-profit market has created or left unfilled and are often doing so by using fragile mechanisms that can easily be destabilised. They don’t really have many options to adapt and they can’t ‘pivot’ to a new customer base to adapt as that would be leaving the original problem unsolved. In short, I don’t think you can fairly use free market thinking for social enterprises.

ajkjk 8y ago

Later on it says that it specifically helps only midsize- and larger growers, because small growers don't produce large enough quantities for it to be profitable to purchase from them: "'We want to be able to source at least a truckload from these growers each week, so they have to be at least midsize in most cases.' Imperfect Produce is only able to make a profit by working with the larger global agribusinesses, not the picturesque small and mid-sized farms it projects in its marketing campaign."

kbenson 8y ago
I suspect we'll see co-ops of smaller growers to gather this food from members for the purpose of selling in bulk then. If there's a market, and it's worth enough, that's what I would expect to happen, just like it does for other market situations with small growers (e.g. farmers markets). Markets tend to work around inefficiencies like that, just as they worked around the inefficiency of product waste in general here. It's generally best to work with and nudge the market through incentives than to expect it to not behave like expected.
beat 8y ago
I have yet to see any food industry marketing anywhere that doesn't create a rosy picture of family farming in its marketing, rather than the factory farms and giant agribusiness that actually supply the vast majority of our food.

dominicr 8y ago

> if you want your social cause to not be a victim of market forces, you either need to work yourself into the market correctly... Social enterprises aren’t responding to a market opportunity in the same way a for profit business is. They are filling a gap that the for-profit market has created or left unfilled and are often doing so by using fragile mechanisms that can easily be destabilised. They don’t really have many options to adapt and they can’t ‘pivot’ to a new customer base to adapt as that would be leaving the original problem unsolved. In short, I don’t think you can fairly use free market thinking for social enterprises.