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I see nothing wrong with: selling something if a paying market is found for that, instead of giving it away for free.

I do see something wrong with: creating that paying market by lying.

I suspect most of those conscientious people who think they are helping farmers and reducing food waste would not be paying for this produce if they knew that it was being taken away from poor people.

In that case, you should never buy anything, because anything manufactured might be donated if you hadn't bought it.

In the majority of cases, retailers trash their products (sometimes after physically destroying them) that go unsold. Even for used items, most people are too lazy to donate even things in perfect condition

Yup. Canadian Tire does this. They have a fence around their returned product smashing area. Any product returned that's not resellable is smashed and thrown away. And their criteria for what's resellable is fairly strict. Most returns just end up smashed. Employees aren't allowed to take or even purchase at a discounted rate or anything. It's just obliterated and trashed. I know someone who used to work there. Employees had ways of taking things(however you feel about it...i understand it's to stop scamming and such but I still feel like it's better than just trashing perfectly good things.). But they still destroyed hundreds of perfectly good stuff while they worked there.

I gotta admit the grocery store I worked at back in the day was pretty good. They left their old produce for people with animals to take. Employees could take expired stuff that was still good but going to be thrown because it was past the date.

I dunno I don't like wasting things that are good. There's always a better solution than just throwing things away and destroying them.

Problem with unsold stuff is that people don't want it at any price. Even poor people. Before stuff is unsold, it goes on sale for 50% off, or maybe 75% or more. Poorer people can afford it at those lower price points.

Not always true. Some companies will rather destroy product rather than undercut themselves (it's a conscious strategy, especially for luxury items).

https://theoutline.com/post/2602/clothing-companies-are-tras...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2010/01/07/why_hm_destr...

I guess that's why some of those startups that tried to create an "exclusive" outlet prospered (Gilt Groupe, Vente Privee).

in my country, you need things destroyed and have a paper confirming that or there may be negative tax implications. it's stupid.

That's hyperbolic and absurd. The objection is against the deceptive marketing.

Anything manufactured, non-perishable that is donated will just be flipped online for a profit. If it still doesn't sell when being flipped, then that confirms that it absolutely is junk that nobody wanted.

I'm just opposed to the lying; don't tell me that unsold goods are going to the landfill if they are really being donated. I will still buy it; I'm not going to join some hand-out lineup to try to get it for free, which won't even happen if the stock moves.

The overriding problem with the analogy is that we can't compare manufactured goods for which there is a demand to stigmatized produce that is viewed as inferior and met with low demand.

This is a strawman. Not great for productive discussion.

More like: if unsold X is given away to people who need it, don't buy X with the goal of reducing waste. And if your other possible motivation is to help the producers of X, bear in mind that there is another group with conflicting interests.

(But it doesn't sound silly if you summarise it accurately, does it?)

Nothing is taken away from poor people and nobody is lying about anything.

This is in fact the accusation made in the article, rightly or wrongly, in its simplest form.

> conscientious people who think they are helping farmers

But they are helping farmers, they are giving them money they otherwise would not have gotten. Why should the burden of providing food for the needy solely come out of farmers' incomes?

That one seems arguable to me. They are probably getting their food either from larger farmers, or from wholesalers.

The rate at which most people consume food is relatively constant, and it's a fair bet that people in these services' target market are more likely than most to get a lot of produce from smaller farmers at farmer's markets.

Meaning that it kind of depends on what you mean by "helping farmers". If you narrowly mean increasing the income of some set of farmers, yeah, sure. If you implicitly mean the small family farms many of us like to romantically think of when we use phrases like "helping farmers", nah, it's probably diverting money away from family farmers and toward bigger players in the industry. If you mean diverting more money toward farmers in general, that also seems doubtful - most people have a relatively fixed grocery budget, and these services are probably just shuffling around who gets a cut of it, and naturally keeping some of it for themselves. That suggests a good chance of a net decrease in the amount of money going to farmers of any size.

There's also an angle that's not-so-tacitly baked into the sales pitch: Less food wasted translates pretty directly into less economic demand for food to be grown.

That's roughly in line with my experience using one of these services.

It really wasn't much of a money saver for us, especially after factoring the delivery fee into account. Worse, it was a terribly inconvenient service. We'd need to place our order the better part of a week before our delivery date, which really threw a monkey wrench into our weekly meal planning. And, for anything that was sold by unit rather than by weight, we had no way of knowing how much food we were actually buying - sometimes you'd get a 2lb head of cabbage, sometimes you'd get a 1/2lb head of cabbage. Again, really threw a monkey wrench into our meal planning. The box wouldn't necessarily contain everything we ordered, either. Which really. . . you get the picture.

I wouldn't have considered it a service that was even the slightest bit compelling, if not for the whole pitch about saving food from the landfill. If that turns out to be inaccurate or exaggerated, that really does kill the whole value proposition as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed. Also, the claims for environmental benefits were fake if those were never being thrown out in the first place.

Also, 'throwing out' or turning under viable produce is a good way to replenish soil nutrients. Imperfect produce is also further incentivizing the destruction of American soil quality.

Most marketing is borderline deceptive. I'd venture a guess that most of IP customers are eduacted enough to know that, and are buying the service based on its more tangible benefits (ie. not to save the world)

This happened previously with "chocolate" diamonds. Those undesirable diamonds were often used in industrial applications. When jewelry stores started promoting them, the cost of "ugly" diamonds went up, making some other applications more expensive.

Also, I do a fair amount of work with a local neighborhood center that has as a part of their mission meeting the basic needs of local residents. I haven't been there during fresh produce bank they run, but I've seen pictures and been told by the management that they get some very high quality produce. Apparently the local markets aren't that great at predicting the desire for a product, so they get some pretty high quality produce from every chain in the city.

Yeah, this whole piece is from someone with an axe to grind. I get it, Beet Box was more community focused and basically a non-profit masquerading as a startup. It's natural they'd get stomped by a real startup, but in this case, the competition is literally taking trash and making people eat it. It's great! What could be wrong with that? We waste like 40% of all food made in this country.

But it's not trash. It's food that was being used. I don't think most of Imperfect Produce's customers would subscribe if they knew this food was previously being eaten by people in need. Their entire marketing and product concept is based on a lie.

Imperfect Produce's customers are more than welcome to donate their cost savings or other food to people in need if they are dissatisfied with how much someone else is donating.

Then someone needs to first let them know about this situation, because there is information asymmetry afoot.

A market is informed buyers and sellers...this is not market activity it is sleeze.

To be very clear, we do not sell food that would've otherwise gone to folks in need. We source from the 20 billion pounds of produce that goes to waste on farms–that's after food banks take what they can. As a country, we've barely scratched the surface of this huge problem of food waste. This Feeding American report is a great resource: bit.ly/2wobdjK

> Imperfect produce has managed to create a market for food that was previously not able to be sold.

> Does this mean that we may have to restructure social programs as that food becomes sold rather than donated? Sure might.

Except the former is already happening, while it's highly uncertain whether or not the latter will happen.

The author's best arguments aren't articulated well. I will try and paraphrase.

Essentially, Imperfect Produce is buying scraps from medium to larger farms and marketing it to people that would normally buy produce from small farmers. They sell you on the concept of buying vegetables and helping the environment and farmers at the same time. They do this by claiming that the food would go to waste if you didn't buy it and they also imply through marketing materials that the food comes from quaint little ma and pa farms.

The thrust of the argument is not "boo, capitalism!", it's that it is deceptive marketing and it's hurting small farmers. Because 1) the food would not go to waste if it wasn't purchased and 2) the food they are selling does not come from small farmers but it's marketed like it does and it's marketed to the same people that would normally buy from small farmers

I think I understood the author fairly well, I just find fault in his argument.

He hasn't proved "1) the food would not go to waste if it wasn't purchased" AT ALL. He's merely implied it through incorrect facts about donations to food banks.

number 2 is likely true, but that actually make it MORE likely that the food would have gone to waste. I've worked with donation programs in my local state that harvest crops left in the field. Large farms will leave crops unharvested if the price drops below a certain point (either because of market changes or because the produce grade would be lower). They do this because it costs more to hire the labor to harvest it than the crop will bring in.

Small farms are much less likely to do this.

Finally: The author of this piece is basically just a competitor in the SAME market. Literally. You can sign up for 16 weeks of BeetBox deliveries for a mere 530 bucks (I'm being facetious if it's not entirely obvious... they're asking 35 dollars a box for self pickup - they're selling expensive freaking veggies.)

So I fail to find the argument that this is hurting donations compelling (or even factual) and I don't believe the author's motives are any more pure.

Basically - this is a hit piece against a competitor in the same market, and it should be read as such.

We have never claimed to source from small farms. We source from medium and large scale farms, where most of the 20 billion lbs of food waste happens. Rather than targeting CSA shoppers or farmers market patrons, we target shoppers who are going to supermarkets and buying “perfect” produce at a premium. We are encouraging them to think more about where they get their fruits and vegetables by offering another option so they can save money and reduce waste. We think CSAs are a great option for those that want locally-sourced produce that’s grown at a small-scale and we entirely support that choice if the option is financially available to you.

> Does this mean that we may have to restructure social programs as that food becomes sold rather than donated? Sure might. That's ok though.

Said the man who never relied on donated food to survive.

Still, I know I shouldn't be surprised to see this sort of comment on the mother of all capitalist congregations that is HN.

To repeat myself

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The author of this piece is basically just a competitor in the SAME market. Literally. You can sign up for 16 weeks of BeetBox for a mere 530 bucks (I'm being facetious if it's not entirely obvious... they're asking 35 dollars a box for self pickup - they're selling expensive freaking veggies.)

So I fail to find the argument that this is hurting donations compelling (or even factual) and I don't believe the author's motives are any more pure.

Basically - this is a hit piece against a competitor in the same market, and it should be read as such.

You are making my point for me. I'm talking about people who rely on donated food to survive and you are talking about prices, markets and competition.

>Imperfect produce has managed to create a market for food that was previously not able to be sold. Good for them.

Like when Robin Hood was introduced to capitalism and started “robbing the hood.” Nothing like taking food from the poor and selling it to the rich, just need that good market...I know tell them they are saving the world by buying this food and otherwise it would be waste.

Think of all these “untapped” markets startups can disrupt like soup kitchens and food stamps. These morons out here giving food away when they are just one round of VC money away from creating new markets.

That’s probably because you are not an Oakland hipster who attended a liberal college }:)

Jokes aside, the article does read like a buzzword soup, and looks like a low blow from someone who is getting outcompited fair and square.

I would also like to see an analysis of the impact in consumer prices, since imperfect food is making a net loss for producers into a net gain.

If these producers are competing this should lower the prices, what could potentially reduce the need for donated food altogether (I know it’s very optimistic, but hey, a man can dream)