4 ms·
If you go to farmers' markets, sometimes there's the option to buy 'rejects' - ugly produce - at a significantly reduced cost. It would be cool to see somethin
by WaxProlix 12y ago
If you go to farmers' markets, sometimes there's the option to buy 'rejects' - ugly produce - at a significantly reduced cost.
It would be cool to see something similar in supermarkets, since the waste of tons of food is atrocious on its own merits, and reducing that waste while introducing a cheaper alternative might make produce more affordable all around.
- weaksauce 12y agoThere are places like that... Near me there is a decent sized Persian population and there are some Persian owned markets that get the non "top" quality produce and sell it for a steal. (Top in quotes because it's still usually high quality just not "perfect" looking) I find it hard to buy produce anywhere else.
- bradbeattie 12y agoIntermarché in France did just that: https://vimeo.com/98441820 https://vimeo.com/98441820
- maerF0x0 12y agoFood is so subsidized that we may as well throw out any food that consumers dont want, the tax payer will eat the cost (but not the food).
- eru 12y agoNot all produce is subsidised.
- KeytarHero 12y agoCanada's largest supermarket chain recently started doing this: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/loblaws-sells-discounted-ugly-produce-in-ontario-quebec-stores-1.2995926 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/loblaws-sel...
- hencq 12y agoSo did French supermarket Intermarché and Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn. It's encouraging to see that bigger chains are starting to do this. Throwing away perfectly good food just because it doesn't look 'perfect' is pretty ridiculous.
- smorrow 12y agoDo they really throw that stuff away? You can make juice and the like with it; no-one would ever know what it looked like.
- kibwen 12y agoI can tell you right now that 100% of my friends are thrifty enough that they would exclusively buy "reject" produce even at only a marginal discount. By the time you're done preparing the vegetables for the meal you can't even tell what it looked like originally anyway. All you need to do is ensure that people are aware that the edibility is the same (which, if sold by reputable supermarkets, will be taken as a given) and give them accurate guides on discerning the ripeness of such produce (assuming that our usual standards of ripeness are based on color, or other traits that rejects might not fulfill). There's a fortune to be made here. Market it to broke post-college grads, counterculture hipsters, and earth-loving hippies. Hint hint, entrepreneurs.
- secabeen 12y agoThey're also often called "visually distressed".
- DanBC 12y agoThe well known version of this is "Ugly Fruits". http://www.frutafeia.pt/en http://www.frutafeia.pt/en http://www.uglyfruits.eu/ http://www.uglyfruits.eu/ Here's a BBC Radio Four programme that talks about Ugly Fruits and two other "food waste" initiatives. (Zimbabwean orphans growing mushrooms in food waste - raising their status from social outcasts to useful members of society with produce to trade; and John Greany Sørensen who vacuum dries pulps to make crystals from food.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mpx0k http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mpx0k
- will_hughes 12y agoWoolworths in Australia started doing this recently. Though, to be honest the stuff they're selling looks just like the regular ones.
- Pxtl 12y agoUgly or not, peeling janky-shaped potatoes sucks.