Most “ugly” produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam
twitter.com
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"For example, there was a poster of dried shiitake mushrooms that were slightly damaged during the production process. In the Japanese market, only perfectly round shiitake were sold, but MUJI sold imperfectly shaped shiitake because they taste just as delicious. In another poster, the copy reads “The entire fish is salmon.” This is straightforward copy reminding readers that salmon is delicious head to tail, so all of it should be eaten. Even as the Japanese economy moved closer and closer toward an economic bubble, we had positive feedback from so many consumers back then who wanted to focus on the simple things in life." https://www.muji.com/us/flagship/huaihai755/archive/koike.ht...
It shows that you can package almost anything as long as you do it with conceptual integrity. If you sell discounted goods, don't try to pass it off as as good as something more expensive, because that is not credible or interesting. Emphasize that it's less expensive, and why. When I google "conceptual integrity" which is funny in a way because I'm not a developer, and also interesting because it shows that many foundational ideas are cross-disciplinary.
I heard once that some steaks sold are actually separate pieces of meat glued together and made to look like a natural steak. Maybe this happens with fish as well. Wouldn't "the entire fish is salmon" be referring to that there's no pieces of other fish glued to the fillet? I mean, perhaps there's a legal technicality where it's permissible to sell a product as salmon when at least 10% is actual salmon or so.
It's kind of like how all those sweeteners sold as being stevia are actually only like 1 or 2% stevia.
Sometimes they add filler to match the volume of sugar for equivalent sweetness. This makes it easier to proportion out for baking and adding to drinks. Otherwise the baking might be off or the drinks too sweet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transglutaminase#Industrial_an...
Currently fresh food buyers are basically subsidising processed food manufacturers, making the former relatively more expensive compared to the latter.
Any move to consume uglier foods would increase competition and prices at the lower end, making fresh food relatively cheaper.
From a dietary point of view this is good, fresh food tends to be healthier than processed.
I suppose it could, assuming they didn't buy mote fresh produce instead of processed. But in Tha situation they either don't want to change their diet (so its their choice?) or they already have an ideal diet, no processed food to stop consuming. I'm not sure how big the latter population is though.
A single mother working two jobs with a small kitchen struggles to get the time to prep or to afford to buy in bulk to prep in advance.
I hope we can all agree that everyone has a right to eat. But that people don't have the right to eat steak every day. So somewhere in the middle there is a diet that people have a right to. There's a tremendous grey area in there, but I think its reasonable to expect people to prioritise a healthy diet first, although again there is a limit to that.
I'm also not sure how far your line of reasoning is from objecting to taxes on cigarettes or alcohol, on the basis it will hit less well off people hardest. I don't want to deny poorer people nice things, but that shouldn't be carte blanche to keep 'bad' things cheap.
Half the problem is that processed food encompasses coke, chocolate, cake as well as frozen peas and baked beans. So we could just be talking past each other here.
There's a lot of caveat there, because it depends on the kind of processing. For example, in terms of vitamin content, fresh produce usually compares unfavorably with frozen produce, and often comes in behind canned food as well. Yes, freezing and canning are both forms of processing, but they're forms of processing that are meant to preserve the food. The same things that protect it from spoilage can also protect some of the more volatile nutrients from breaking down.
It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting, I find the condescending tone off-putting.
Are there advantages to this communication style that I'm missing?
The lesson from this is - share stories only within your area of expertise.
See the statement about Honeycrisp apples.
Yes there are varieties more suited to different purposes, and there may be some that are grown specifically for those other purposes (e.g. a variety might be selectively bred with higher pectin for jam-making), but commercial producers of things like soup, pies, jams etc are a prime destination for ugly instances of supermarket-shelf varieties.
Of course, there's also the "outrage gets you likes" aspect, but I guess if I were in the agriculture field I might have reason to genuinely be somewhat outraged.
I probably wouldn't call it classist af for someone to not understand efficiencies of agricultural logistics, though..
Why do they have to "constantly correct" it? What is their business?
Besides, it's not really "naivete".
Eating uglier fruit and vegetables is still good advice, to not get sucked buyinh tasteless but nice-looking produce that selectively breeds for size and color over taste, and even uses BS tricks like coloring and such to make it more appealing.
> Eating uglier fruit and vegetables is still good advice...
The irony that is lost upon them is that by walking into their fancy grocery store, they're basically signalling to the grocery store that they're willing to pay a high price for what the grocery store and their demographic has deemed "unblemished" produce that meets certain criteria for size and appearance.
In a sense it is totally fair to call out such naivete. Instead of complaining to Whole Foods, these folks should just shop elsewhere. The price will be lower, the flavors will be different (usually better), and yes, there will more blemishes and unexpected size and appearance.
To actually find that "ugly" produce one needs to go to the discount/ethnic groceries. In the Northeastern US, that just means finding the Asian and Hispanic produce vendors and going there for produce. There are _some_ other vendors which are beginning to catch on, "Produce Junction" comes to mind.
I can't help but wonder about the upbringing of the folks who act out in anger, in public (posting on the internet is public).
Would you talk this way around your parents, peers, kids? I hope not. The internet is not any different - they're someone's parents, peers and kids, reading your posts.
In this situation I'd say the consumer is the victim of being misled, but you stir up a lot more people by accusing both parties!
Others are pointing out that the author is rightly frustrated. Of course, but most people don't accidentally make broad accusations of problematic isms, either.
> Of course, but most people don't accidentally make broad accusations of problematic isms, either.
Have you been on twitter before?
We can do "The Innuendo" We can dance and sing When it's said and done we haven't told you a thing We all know that Kraft is king Give us dirty laundry!"
Dirty Laundry - Don Henley
As of last year the farm he bought them off no longer bothers to harvest seconds because it’s not worth it to them in the cost of labour to pick, sort and sell them.
So yes in certain cases this fruit is being wasted and people paying more for it would cause less of it to rot.
For large raspberry growers here in WA, most berries are mechanically harvested and sent off to be processed into juices, extracts, concentrates, etc. One producer I know ships them over the Cascades in milk tankers. (Faster, fresher, less handling.) They can go from the farm to the factory line in under eight hours.
Berries by the pint, and even IQF (individually-quick frozen) berries command a HUGE premium, and are often hand harvested. You can't take those labor costs downmarket and make the economics work.
>that at smaller scales, composting isn't awful.
And note that in cases like this, having worked on an organic fruit farm, it is often very difficult to actually compost the unused fruit seconds. Very acidic fruit in large quantities does not generally make for a good compost. It requires a lot more work to deal with a mountain of lemons for instance in a compost to get a usable soil composition. Most people don't ever encounter issues like this because a households normal compost is varied enough that you won't have this problem.
A lot of times nothing will grow or you won't get a very good yield out of really acidic soil for the most part.
All this is to say that the fruit in your example is probably literally being put to no purpose whatsoever and is almost assuredly not being composted.
Since we're talking about bad things that can happen with old fruit - one more story where composting is truly awful. There was a lawsuit in these parts a few years ago where several hunters were severely burned after falling through into a pile of decomposing grape mash. Apparently it can reach temperatures in excess of 500° when highly concentrated:
So how do you know they wouldn't just plant more if people paid more?
If the total demand is stable then you'd need less perfect crop and you could actually plant less to sell the same amount at the same price.
> Most "ugly" produce gets turned into soups, sauces, salsa, jam, ice cream, etc. You think that stuff gets made from the pretty fruit & veggies?! jeebus, think about it for a minute
I've thought about it, and yes, that stuff gets made from the pretty fruit & veggies. Sure, a LOT of it gets made from the rejected "ugly" fruit from other supply chains, and—also—even in cases where it's being made from the pretty ones, they're not filtering out the "ugly" ones, so generally all the food is used in those cases. BUT, no, we don't have a perfect interoperable system where every ag supplier has equal and complimentary arrangements with supermarkets and salsa factories. Not every packing house is the same (not every one separates out the uglies), and not every one supplies salsa makers. There is PLENTY of waste in between.
> The amt of produce wasted bc of labor problems (can't get a crew to harvest) & bad weather (melons that rot in the field bc it's too hot & wet, etc) WAY outstrips produce thrown out bc it's "ugly."
She may be right here (would like to see some data, but still—the statement seems plausible), but in what way does that nullify the fact that plenty of produce is still thrown out? In what way does labour/weather-problem-related waste mean we shouldn't also try to reduce waste in areas where we very easily can?
> IT GOES TO THE GROCERY STORES THAT POOR PEOPLE SHOP AT
This sentence from the same person who just used the phrase "classist as fuck"!?
There's nothing classist about acknowledging the fact that poor and rich people often shop in different stores.
If you answered 3x NO, then nitpicking this point as being "classist" is, to paraphrase, dumb as fuck.
And that's in the states. In the UK, it's a running joke that the different supermarket chains are subdivided along class lines.
If there is a quality difference, then it might be the other way around, because supermarkets targeting well-off customers tend to have more organic produce, which is almost always grade B.
(But seriously, is there really such stories that exist as poor/rich or are these just the same stores in different areas?)
I wouldn't say poor vs rich stores, but there are supermarkets which compete on pricing and others that compete on 'experience'. The first would have low prices, put out produce in the boxes it came in, employ less workers, etc (ALDI where I am from) and the latter will focus on all the food looking pretty, have nice looking displays, have people in the store making sushi, etc (AH where I am from). Where I live there is a shopping center with 1 of each of these types of stores in it. So no, it is not a matter of geography.
Aldi defined the discount grocery segment in the 60s with their focus on vertical integration and cost savings. In the 90s, all Aldi stores notably used the same sort of ugly tiles for their floors and walls, probably because they got a bulk price on them and they're easy to clean etc. When Aldi stocks new items, the process consists of placing a pallet onto the shop floor and removing the foil around it. For smaller items, they just open up the box and put the entire box in the shelf instead of shelfing items one-by-one. At the checkout, there is no bagger; you're supposed to pack your bags while the cashier is scanning the items.
Aldi also waited much longer than anyone else before introducing barcode scanners at their checkouts. Since they stocked only one of every type of item (e.g. only one type of sugar, one type of flour, etc.), there were so few items that cashiers could just memorize the codes for each product. It was quite impressive to see a cashier punching codes into the register at a rapid pace while the flood of items scrolls past them. I may misremember it, but it may have been faster than scanning barcodes.
When Aldi introduced barcodes in the early 2000s, they modified the packaging of items so that barcodes were not only placed at one corner, but instead stretched across the whole side, so that the items could be scanned more reliably.
The divide between supermarkets and discounters is blurring, though. The Aldi store next door just got a redesign and now looks confusingly welcoming. Kind of un-German. I always think of Aldi as a place where shopping is done efficiently first and foremost, and the new design does not really reflect that. It makes it look like a regular supermarket (although still at the size of a discounter).
In the UK they seem to have taken store design up a notch, to the point that there's a discernible difference with the Lidl experience (along with now being a tad more expensive on equivalent products). I suspect it's an incremental differentiator in retaining the more affluent customers they captured over the past decade. Lidl, on the other hand, offers a more mixed experience: for the most part, they're still quite dowdy and utilitarian, although they have what seem like experimental stores that appear to be competing in affluent areas with an Aldi presence (larger, open layouts; brighter lighting; polished, natural floor tiles etc.). The kinds of customers I usually find at Lidl are notably absent.
Due to this incredible speed at check-out, the same number of employees can process a far larger number of customers than the super market in the Netherlands that I go to. Very smart.
For example, here in Portland there’s Grocery Outlet (stocks out-of-season/discontinued/damaged/nearly expired stuff at great prices) less than 2 blocks from a Whole Foods. I shop at both but otherwise don’t see a lot of overlap in the clientele.
Says the guy that uses FUCK in his comment. Hi pot, meet kettle.
> Not every packing house is the same (not every one separates out the uglies), and not every one supplies salsa makers.
That's not how the system functions. Most produce is auctioned off with strict quality ratings. No contracts needed.
> In what way does labour/weather-problem-related waste mean we shouldn't also try to reduce waste in areas where we very easily can?
The ugly fruit movement claims that:
> About 20-40% of Produce is Wasted Worldwide, this is mostly due to strict cosmetic standards from large grocers that dictate exactly how their fruit and veggies should look
This is the point she's refuting and you're right: she may be right here.
> This sentence from the same person who just used the phrase "classist as fuck"!?
There are poor people. There are businesses focussing on this demographic. Simply stating those facts doesn't make you classist.
Wokeness points
Invoking an offended identity group is a necessary condition of getting something to fly on Twitter.
The idea that our enlightened attitudes set us apart from the rest of unwashed humanity is our fake news -- the stuff we consume unreflectively because it flatters us and plays nicely with our prejudices. Presented in a neutral context, the idea that the agricultural industry was throwing away significant quantities of produce because of aesthetic flaws would meet a lot of skepticism. Presented in the context of you are special because you understand how wrong this practice is and special people like us can help save the world by fixing this problem the idea gets uncritically accepted and widely shared on social media.
Calling people "classist as fuck" is designed to startle and threaten exactly the people who tend to accept these narratives uncritically, and put them in a frame of mind to consider that they might be wrong. Whatever the truth of the issue is, we won't get there unless we stop seeing ourselves as the hero of the story.
You are entirely correct, but I think what GP is saying is that there's a very specific kind of person who goes from being insulted on the Internet to open to reflection and it's not most people.
I do think they are being unkind and rude. There were too sides here the "scammers" and the clueless good people who got taken for a ride. Alienating the latter group is a mistake and will just make people avoid you because they will never be good enough for you anyway.
I on the other hand, feel vindicated in my apathy. "Trying to do good is a waste of time, the world is too ungrateful"
Similarly, some hiring practices wind up preferring men over women or vice versa, and are thus sexist. Whether that was the intent or not, the outcome is the same.
I think social media is designed to perpetuate superiority complexes. The vocal minority that post most often seem to think a lot of themselves and not much of everyone else.
I don't mind the format as much as I mind typos and uneven thought, but that's an entirely different issue.
It almost makes me grateful for the inevitable Vox story that just pulls Taber's comments. At least that will be in a format that people can share.
> IT GOES TO THE GROCERY STORES THAT POOR PEOPLE SHOP AT
So I shop a lot at “grocery stores that poor people shop at” (in Europe, for what it’s worth; maybe the US is different). And the produce sold there is, for the most part, very different from the “ugly” fruit and veg that sustainability hipsters are talking about.
Here’s what produce is sold at “poor people stores”: plasticky, perfect-looking, and utterly tasteless. Yes, there’s a lot of waste because a lot of it gets squashed and mouldy. But nobody is talking about selling that stuff because it’s genuinely bad.
Some greengrocers do sell cheap “ugly” produce but the vast majority that lands in discount super markets isn’t ugly, it’s just incredibly bad quality.
I don’t know what this means for her argument vs the food hipsters. But I find her condescension towards people who don’t know how poor people shop, coupled with apparent misinformation, extremely alienating.
Oversized fruits and vegetables mostly exist because they were "missed" during the previous harvesting round. A cucumber that is ripe but isn't harvested because it was hiding behind some leaves, will be oversized the next day. Same goes for a lot of other produce.
Farmers receive the highest price for produce that's the "right" size. Other sizes will be auctioned off with a lower quality rating and get a lower price per kg. Also, the boxes are made for regular sizes and they can be packed more efficiently.
If a supermarket sells inferior products for a higher price, it's because the supermarket wants to do that and not because the other parts of the market chain force them to.
A year ago I would've shrugged this off as an exaggeration, but after my wife decided to grow cucumbers last summer I've seen first hand how fast those things grow.
At the same time, it's also good to know that there's no wastage here. All the non-standard produce goes into cakes, quiches and other commercial products where the appearance isn't noticeable.
For the most part, they are a mixture of sizes including both large and small, so it usually evens out. They are rejects primarily because of shape (can't be packaged in standard containers, too long and they would break when the lid was closed; too small and they would move around and crack) or because they have double yolks (purely cosmetic). The cosmetic look was a bit offputting at first--we are all used to the expected appearance with a single yolk--but it makes zero difference to the taste.
I have no clue how the supply chain works, but I don't think produce from the same source is separated by the quality you're describing.
what I meant was one farm generally wouldn't have a crop that yields "great" produce that tastes great while simultaneously having produce that is:
> plasticky, perfect-looking, and utterly tasteless.
these would generally come from completely different crops and farms.
I understand that produce is graded by physical appearance but that produce of varying condition from the same crop would pretty much taste the same, which leads to the whole discussion about ugly produce.
Naturally, I choose the latest to expire to maximize my options within the consumption time-frame. And I think everyone does?
But do you actually care about food waste if every time you make that decision the earlier-stocked milks that are still around, and set to expire sooner, are pretty much guaranteed to not be purchased?
I guess I have no idea of the scale here, or even how much is wasted. It just seems like there would naturally be some sort of price-tiering of dairy products based on expiry to incentivize what might be a better overall consumption.
For other items I reach in and take items from behind the first row for similar reasons since the retailer may have put returned items (which might be slightly spoiled or damaged) up front. This is also the reason I never take the last item of anything.
So there's more too it than simple expiration dates. Retailer subterfuge is also a factor.
I don't know what they're doing to extend its shelf life so much, but as a childless sometimes-uses-milk home, I love it, and couldn't care less about the exact dates.
Ultra pasteurized simply means that the milk has been heated under pressure at a higher temperature for a shorter period of time (280° for two seconds versus 167° at 15 seconds for standard pasteurized).
What's the typical date on it, relative to purchase and expiration?
In the US milk is usually given a sell-by of three weeks after pasteurization, and actually lasts almost a week beyond that.
Though it depends some on fridge temperature, could...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15553644 https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/65579/why-do-fri... https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1541-4337.12... huh.
Absolutely. Even when getting the milk with the farthest away expiration data I rarely end up finishing a whole carton of milk until 1 or 2 days after that date. Without those few extra days, half the milk risks getting poured down the sink.
If the milk with the soonest expiration date was the only one available, would you buy it or just walk out without milk?
If I didn't really need milk that day, I'd almost certainly skip it. If really needed milk I'd buy it and possibly end up pouring half of it down the sink because I almost never manage to use a whole carton of milk in 3-4 days
The only thing I use milk for is in my morning coffee. I usually buy half liter cartons and even then I often end up with the milk going bad before I'm through with it. So yeah, I do.
Now that I have a kid, I'm happy to buy the discounted short-expiration-date stuff since it'll be gone in 2 days no matter what.
To ensure it doesn't go bad, I purchase in smaller quantities. I'm unlikely to buy a full gallon of milk at once.
It's not evil or stupid. It's the law.
https://www.ehso.uic.edu/UserFiles/Servers/Server_82316/File... pg 36
It's in a different state (each has their own code), but it'll do.
Also "four hours" isn't really an "end of the day" thing... And if they're in temperature control at the end of the day, then four hours is plenty of time to get them distributed and consumed.
Here's an FDA list of TCS (Temperature Controlled for Safety) foods:
https://www.education.ne.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/List...
Note butter, whipped cream, eggs, all part of frosting and fillings for baked goods.
Here's the 4 hour window again:
https://www.statefoodsafety.com/Resources/article/category/R...
You should throw out cakes and cream puffs. You can donate bagels and challah bread.
"If time only, rather than time in conjunction with temperature, is used as the public health control for a working supply of potentially hazardous food before cooking, or for ready-to-eat potentially hazardous food that is displayed or held for service for immediate consumption"
Many baked goods are not considered "potentially hazardous foods". Things filled or frosted fall into a different grouping, but most plain breads (even those including eggs or butter) are shelf stable for days. They suffer a sever drop in culinary quality (ie; stale) but they don't suffer a drop in culinary safety.
Maybe the guy is extremely risk averse, maybe his area has a very zealous food safety department, but it seems like he's not super interested in trying to make this happen (which is fine, he can spend his time doing whatever he want).
Of course, said shops will also need to have something on display at all times to lure customers in, so there will always be some waste. As long as the percentage of waste remains low it should be fine. Besides, food waste isn't too bad for the environment (relatively), it's fully biodegradable.
I certainly used to, but now that I have a toddler that consumes an unreal amount of milk, I just buy whatever's at the front. It'll be gone in 4 days regardless.
This is of course also because big quantities are cheaper; when buying milk or most produce really, the cost isn't in the product itself, it's in the packaging, handling, shipping and refrigerating.
Longer-Expiry products at the back, newer at the front.
But I know at my local supermarkets nobody gives a shit, Frequently I'll buy the same product twice in a row, and the item on the second day expires before the one on the first.
All their staff just chucks the new shit at the front. The milk is even worse, as they just combine the half-empty early-date trollies and wheel out a fresh late-date one.
I'd say it all gets sold. But I have a /marvellous/ view of their bins. They throw so much stuff out.
Even if you're going to use it long before the date matters, so you get an identical experience anyway?
> There should be automatically applied increasing discounts as the product approaches the expiration date, so there's some reason beyond laziness to pick the less fresh ones.
That sounds like a bunch of labor that will make things more expensive. If they really want to trade effort for getting two-day-older stock cleared out, they can just let the shelf get closer to empty before restocking.
The customer response depends on both the product category and the time of day, for obvious reasons. And I guarantee the likes of Wal-Mart will have run studies on this and chosen the optimal ordering level for milk in their stores.
I have recently started to deliberately mix ages when I see a variation, knowing that at least some of it will be consumed pretty soon and order will be assured by the way I arrange out fridge contents. It feels unjustifiably good.
No, I've never done this for milk. I just take the first one on the shelf and trust the supermarket to sell me milk that will last for a few weeks. I don't really look at the price, either. I'm going to buy it anyway so it doesn't seem like very valuable information (same for other staples like bread, rice, butter, etc.)
In the very rare case when the supermarket makes a mistake with expiration dates (maybe once every 10 years), you can just take it back and get some more milk. It would be a very minor inconvenience, so I don't worry about it.
"When produce is too far gone to sell & there's no processing market (say, melons), it often gets fed to livestock."
Many times the farmers are given such a low ball offer, that is basically expecting them to sell for loss. The farmer does the obvious. Takes their produce, dump in a lake near by as garbage, because it often doesn't economic make sense to take it back.
Sometimes its worse than that. They just take their lorry and drive over the produce in the market and just take a bus back.
That doesn't make any economic sense either. How is "selling at a loss" (i.e. taking in less money than it costs to produce) worse than dumping the produce (taking in no money whatsoever)?
There has to be some other factor at play here.
I guess its just a way of saying they won't negotiate to sell at low prices ever. Because once you do, people use it as precedence to bargain again.
Also stifle the supply to some extent and the next time around the demand goes up.
I wish I could buy frozen lettuce. Lettuce can be cooked (e.g. for lettuce soup), and cooked lettuce loses the crisp texture, so there's no drawback to freezing it first. The idea that lettuce is only a salad vegetable is an irrational tradition, like the idea that there are foods only suitable (or unsuitable) for breakfast. I'd eat more lettuce if it wasn't so expensive compared to frozen spinach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettuce_soup
I'm not sure if heating actually increases the bitterness of lettuce, or just the perception of bitterness because the softer texture makes better contact with your tongue. I personally am not very sensitive to bitter tastes, but if you are, you could use a smaller portion. Easy portion control is another advantage of frozen vegetables, because you don't have to worry about the unused portion rotting.
The supermarkets know very well what kind of produce doesn't sell, so these specs actually prevent waste, because unsold produce that is about to spoil really does go to waste.
Other people and the original source mention food rotting because it cannot be picked before it spoils, which is probably a problem. But in the case of these bananas, they have been picked and made it all the way to a sorting facility, and could be sent to somewhere for consumption. These bananas may be worse than the ones that rot in the field, because they are responsible for additional energy and labour expenditure.
Again, even if those bananas see no other use than being dumped, that doesn’t mean they would’ve been consumed by actual humans if it hadn’t been for those standards. Some other organism will consume them instead.
The problem is manufacturers and retailers optimizing a deep supply-chain for what's easiest and most consistent: picking fruit green so it lasts a long time and doesn't get damaged.
There's a difficult-to-defend market for almost as beautiful but insanely delicious produce that can shorten the supply-chain and deliver just-in-time... hydroponics and gentler processing may help. How much would you pay for an apple or tomato if it were 3-8x better than the generic produce aisle? (People also want organic non-GMO if they're paying more.)
Finally, there's a good deal of issues around monoculture risks, especially with cloned products like bananas, that already had to be reengineered once and about to be tweaked again because of pest and disease evolution.
And a friends mom worked as at a Potato processing factory, 6 million lbs of potato's in, 4 million lbs of potato products out. 1 million lbs of hog food out. The remainder is dirt and rocks. This factory had a machine to cut damaged bits out of french fries with air knives.
I think the majority of waste is consumer side.
Just thought I'd share that canned tomatoes are delicious, better than fresh in many cases and cooks illustrated has some tremendous analysis on all varieties of canned tomatoes.
[0]https://www.cooksillustrated.com/taste_tests/510-canned-dice...
I've been to all of those places and other than the decor and maybe freshness they didn't seem that misshapen or blemished to me.
My understanding is that they, like many Asian markets, have exclusive long term deals with certain farms. Maybe only for certain types of produce?
Regardless, I find a lot of their produce, especially their greens, to be incredibly fresh and incredibly good looking — much better than what I can typically find at TJs or WF.
Also, grow your own.. anyone with at least a balcony and sunlight in California has no excuse to grow tomatoes and peppers in the summer.
Grocery Outlet sells hydroponic Live Lettuce for cheap, including the mixed varieties box, at least here.
I should add that tomatoes freeze very well as long as you're using them for sauces, soups etc.
90%+ of what they shipped me was ordinary surplus produce. Even the "ugly" carrots they sent me were ... just ordinary carrots, as far as I could tell.
I've since moved cities, but I used to be able to get a week's worth of fruit and vegetables for under $10. Most items were under $2 per kg.
"hey theres a huge amount of fruits that are being sold very cheap. Is there a way i could sell then for more?"
So you start a spreading idea that ugly fruit get's waisted and this this is not eco friendly etc. And next thing you know someone on HN is asking "where do i get these ugly fruits" :)
And yes it can be sold cheaper than normal fruits, but if it's more profitable than turning them in to jam, then it's a win.
By the way, not saying that it's wrong, just an interesting way to manipulate people to not being picky and eat all the fruits.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/05/asda-put...
They are sold very cheap like 'outlaws' or expensive as 'real bio'.
What I understand is that we have 3 visual classes. Some in the third class can be sold by law but as seller you have to check every peace. So it is more easy to skip that class. And just to be save most supermarkets just skipped the second class also.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-45238...
Is it possible they’re both right? These matters are rarely as simple as they seem; it’s not inconceivable that there’s a fair amount of truth to both sides, and I’m willing to bet they could find quite a bit of common ground.
"Ugly fruit doesn't sell" is just one part of it, there's waste all along the chain of production, and not least in the homes. Modern society tends to interpret "best before" as "poison after", which leads to a lot of food being needlessly thrown away.
According to the Swedish food agency (or something like that), the average person in Sweden throws 19 kg of food in the thrash and pours 26 kg of food in the sink every year.
I have recently started to deliberately mix ages when I see a variation, knowing that at least some of it will be consumed pretty soon and order will be assured by the way I arrange out fridge contents. It feels unjustifiably good.
Thanks https://mytellthebell.com
I have some friends in silicon valley that subscribed to this online delivery service for ugly produce: https://www.imperfectproduce.com
It looks to me like a mix of too much disposable income, and getting brag rights at dinner party for virtue signaling.
I'd subscribe to normal produce delivery instead if that were an option. I don't really care about the "imperfect" part and the premium over my local supermarket is pretty negligible
Twitter is weird.
And from the looks of it's growth in Ontario grocery stores, the program is doing quite well.
Yes, I know threaders exist. But that's solving a problem that shouldn't have existed at the first place.
OTOH, in my eyes, posts like that is pretty much the only redeeming feature Twitter have left by now...
Also, Twitter threads lend itself to stream-of-consciousness style of writing. Putting together an actual article will involve drafting and editing and be more work.
Not really. I hate articles where people ramble on and go full-dostoyevski instead of getting to the point.