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#1 is solvable through dynamic pricing. Why do you need to pick out your pieces of produce individually? You're assessing the quality, using your human senses.

#1 is solvable through dynamic pricing. Why do you need to pick out your pieces of produce individually? You're assessing the quality, using your human senses. We just need quantitative measures of quality (high, medium, low) and discount the lower quality produce.

BeetleB 8y ago
The problem with that is that different people will give a different quantitative value. Something low for you would be medium for me, and something else that is medium for you would be low for me. It's not a partial ordering.
- darkerside 8y ago
  I'm not sure that's meaningfully true. There are two kinds of people who pick their own produce with care. The first kind have an irrational desire to choose their own produce because they've seen others do it. The second kind do it because they are actually good at using the senses of sight, touch, and smell to identify how ripe produce is. This can include weight, firmness, color, texture, and many other characteristics. But they can absolutely be quantified in an objective way. For anyone who has a rational basis for choosing.
  - RobLach 8y ago
    You don’t have much granularity to work with though. It’s either good enough, weird, or not edible. Produce is already sorted by at the processor for auxiliary products such as sauces and processed goods where the consumer would never see them. The stuff reaching store shelves is already supposed to be premium. Then you have a company like Imperfect Produce will take whatever is at the bottom of that group and deliver it to you for about the same price as going to the grocer but alongside an anti food waste social good marketing angle, which I think mostly works on the fact that all that produce has already been judged to be good and you can’t tell so you might as well alleviate some consumer guilt. Also how much market pricing power could put on a $0.50 cucumber. We’re literally talking nickels between categories. What you’re really missing out on is that picking out food activates some finely tuned gatherer senses that people find both enjoyable in the moment and when cooking/eating the food; “I bought some great avacados this morning”.
  - TylerE 8y ago
    I think his point was that different people prefer different things. Like maybe person A wants really nice looking stuff, but eats it infrequently so isn't bothered by getting items that aren't quite ripe yet, whereas person B may not be as "picky" but it has to be peak ripeness.

BeetleB 8y ago

The problem with that is that different people will give a different quantitative value. Something low for you would be medium for me, and something else that is medium for you would be low for me. It's not a partial ordering.

darkerside 8y ago
I'm not sure that's meaningfully true. There are two kinds of people who pick their own produce with care. The first kind have an irrational desire to choose their own produce because they've seen others do it. The second kind do it because they are actually good at using the senses of sight, touch, and smell to identify how ripe produce is. This can include weight, firmness, color, texture, and many other characteristics. But they can absolutely be quantified in an objective way. For anyone who has a rational basis for choosing.
- RobLach 8y ago
  You don’t have much granularity to work with though. It’s either good enough, weird, or not edible. Produce is already sorted by at the processor for auxiliary products such as sauces and processed goods where the consumer would never see them. The stuff reaching store shelves is already supposed to be premium. Then you have a company like Imperfect Produce will take whatever is at the bottom of that group and deliver it to you for about the same price as going to the grocer but alongside an anti food waste social good marketing angle, which I think mostly works on the fact that all that produce has already been judged to be good and you can’t tell so you might as well alleviate some consumer guilt. Also how much market pricing power could put on a $0.50 cucumber. We’re literally talking nickels between categories. What you’re really missing out on is that picking out food activates some finely tuned gatherer senses that people find both enjoyable in the moment and when cooking/eating the food; “I bought some great avacados this morning”.
- TylerE 8y ago
  I think his point was that different people prefer different things. Like maybe person A wants really nice looking stuff, but eats it infrequently so isn't bothered by getting items that aren't quite ripe yet, whereas person B may not be as "picky" but it has to be peak ripeness.