Getting people to buy imperfect produce | Hacker News Reader

Getting people to buy imperfect produce

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37 pointsdsr1254 comments

Is the Ugly Fruit problem a myth? The crop scientist Sarah Taber argues it is a myth: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/26/18240399/food-waste-...

I'm too far removed from the situation to make an educated call but I am inclined to believe her.

Article doesn't contain the word 'taste', which is my take on the problem. I'd rather people were breeding produce for taste rather than being pretty on shelves and easy to transport. In Italy, produce on the shelves is generally not as pretty as here, but it tastes better.

Other than that, though, valuable information.

Personally, I agree. I think that's a food culture and logistics situation. Most of these kinds of efforts are on reducing food waste, which is in line with shelf-stable, unbrusable food.

I have suspicions that because of the young age and the frontier culture of much of US history, the US doesn't have much of a fresh/healthy food culture. I also think the past couple generations of microwaved/processed foods (which has their own benefits) and more recent improvements in year-round food has erased what little cultural knowledge of seasonal and local foods we had. There are a few movements, like Alice Waters, making some change, but I think in general it's very lacking compared to many other countries.

Farmer's markets are where you can find fresher, more seasonal food. They often carry a lot more varieties. Including ones that either aren't familiar enough to the average person, or lack the shelf-life and durability of the mainstream varieties.

I definitely think things are changing for the better in the US, slowly but surely. When I was a kid, "parmesan cheese" was that green shit in a can.

Now, even here in remote, small-ish Bend, Oregon, I can get real Parmigiano Reggiano at Costco at a reasonable price.

There's a significant tradeoff between taste and waste. Modern varieties are bred primarily for long shelf lives and durability during transportation. If you want fruits and vegetables year-round, they're inevitably going to be blander than local and seasonal produce.

The main impact is that we eat way more out-of-season fruits and veggies. Year-round-everything is a pretty new concept.

I've heard the reason that honey crisp apples are expensive is because they spoil easily in shipping. Those red delicious apples that nobody likes are easier to ship. So if you want to optimize produce for taste, buy locally.

I volunteer at an NGO that collects dropped food from the food supply chain. The ugly fruit is not a myth, and I have both the numbers, and the fruits, to prove that.

Ugly fruit problem, not ugly fruit... In that it's Valley b/s to argue that this is some hearty problem which has all the sudden been solved. That the truth is that those ugly fruits were used to make other things or given to the poor.

Oh, ok. Excuse my lack of familiarity with SV food waste jargon.

Nothing is "solved" wrt fresh produce loss. It's a worldwide acute issue, one of our major sustainability killers.

Where I live in South Georgia this time of year I witness dump trucks of cucumbers drive by ever few hours. Once I asked my dad where they are going he said to a feed lot for cattle because they contain defects that would stop consumers from purchasing.

Interesting article. But she says "I love eating fresh produce, but I also know that it’s really expensive and it takes a lot of time to prepare"

But frozen is at least as expensive as fresh, many items like apples, lettuce, onions and tomatoes are simply unavailable, and I don't have remotely enough room in my freezer for all the produce I eat.

As far as the time thing goes, I spend way too much time sitting in front of a computer, and it's good for me to spend time every day standing up chopping up vegetables.

Tauber says the imperfect food gets used other ways, like fed to animals or plowed under. But she doesn't give us any statistics or economic analysis, like the cost of fertilizer.

Also, if it is all already being used, then where are programs like Imperfect Produce getting what they sell?

My wife and I tried Imperfect Produce for a few months, and we were very disappointed with it. For one, an alarmingly large portion of our produce came expired (not just bruised or misshaped or anything like that, but outright expired, even moldy in some instances). And if that wasn't enough, we consistently had mistakes in our orders—things we ordered wouldn't arrive at all, with no notice, and we would sometimes get produce we didn't order. Their customer service issued us a refund + credit in every instance, which makes me think this is a regular occurence, but after the about the 5th mistake we decided we had had enough.

And even if everything had gone swimmingly for us, their selection is incredibly inconsistent, and their prices on some items were barely better than those at our local New Seasons (which isn't known for low prices). Plus, the delivery time is a pretty large window that ends late into the evening, so you can't rely on the produce for your dinner that day.

I love the idea, but they have a lot of issues they need to sort out first. I personally was put off by it and would never try it again or recommend it to anyone.

At that point, you should just buy a real CSA share, instead of Imperfect Produce, which is sort of trying to be a fake CSA.

https://www.localharvest.org/csa/

I haven't looked into it in years, but last I checked, CSA shares where I live are really expensive for what you get. And at that point, I'd rather just get my produce at the local New Seasons—it's much more consistent and convenient, and the quality of their seasonal produce is really good in my experience.

It's a myth in the USA.

Ugly food doesn't make it to the store, it becomes something else which has a longer shelf life.

Food past it's prime goes into the dumpster, without any chance of a discount or price reduction.

Source: The organic potatoes I tried to buy from ALDI which were very sprouted because it was the end of winter begining of sprint and the spuds wanted to grow into plants but the clerk's manager told me, "I can sell them to your for full price, or I have to throw them away."

Writing an email to ALDI corp yielded no response on this matter.

I am a gardener, I could have prevented food waste in this situation.

Employees selling discounted goods to friends is a big source of losses for many retail shops.

That's why they normally have very rigid discounting rules. Discounts are allowed on the day of expiry for example, and the discount percentage is based on how many hours till closing time.

If the goods are bruised and not yet on the day of expiry, they don't allow discounting, although the product can be binned.

Some food gets wasted, but employee fraud would be far larger any other way.

Employee fraud can actually be an employee perk. I worked at a grocery supermarket before. No perks or discounts are offered to employees. Sub quality food is actually a great perk.

Most stores lower price on product as it ages, if they don't sell out. they don't waste time negotiating one-off deals for a single item purchase.

Very little produce actually goes to waste... What do you think stoufers puts in their frozen stews? Where do you get carrot cubes in your soups? Where do you get bananas for your strawberry banana smoothies? Where does tomato paste come from?

The nicest looking stuff is put on the shelf and the ugly stuff is just ground up into your everyday food items.

Out of curiosity, got a source for that? I know my family uses brown bananas for banana bread but I haven't heard of cases like that for other food and I've heard grocery stores have to throw out a lot of food.

Bananas are sort of a special case because by the time they hit peak sugar content they’re heavily mottled. So, especially for baking, they’re often best to use right before they go bad.

This goes against the reports I have seen with photos of farmers dumping mountains of bananas that didn't fit supermarket guidelines.

That amount of wasted produce is probably very dependent on what kind it is. A mountain of wasted bananas might be a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things.

Bananas are some of the most fickle to deal with in the supply chain, because the sweet spot where they are usable is only a few days. Meanwhile, the oranges from our neighbors tree can last for weeks when stored in our pantry.

The farmers reported throwing out almost 40% of their produce because it was too long, too short, too curvy, not curvy enough. As well as rediculous rules about which veriaty of bananas should be curved or not even though they all grow curved and not curved.

I'm holding a dataset (not from the US), let's go over it. Numbers are in %weight from initial produce. Loss is an actual final loss - products left in fields.

Cucumber: 30%

tomato, strawberry, peppers: 10%

Eggplant: 20%

Kolorabbi: 25%

Gleaning needs to make a comeback, perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning

Edit: Not trying to be flippant, I really think people should promote this. If some produce gets regularly left behind, let people come in to pick it up and either use or distribute it.

Gleaning was great when we had villages with small fields interleaved. It's impractical and irrelevant the way modern industrial agriculture is structured.

Gleaning is still a thing.

http://endhunger.org/gleaning-network/

https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda_glea...

I don't think most people have a problem with eating imperfect fruit. If I picked an apple from my tree and half of it was bad I would cut it in half and eat the other half. But if I see a half ruined apple at a supermarket I will pick a good one because they are both the same price.

The more relevant aspect is people who see half-ruined fruits at a grocery step outside and go to another one. It's mainly the big supermarkets who refuse to buy mixed quality produce.

I get that it's a problem that farmers breed pretty and durable produce at the expense of flavor, but my understanding is that "imperfect produce" is generally sorted and used for juicing and other processed ingredients. They wouldn't care about aesthetics of raw food.

Spam. This company is such a ripoff. You get mostly normal produce at average prices. There's literally no point. Just go to the grocery store...

> The company, they argued, is not in the business of food waste so much food surplus: It buys excess products that farmers can’t sell to supermarkets, but could sell to restaurants, canned and processed food companies, or, as a last resort, donate to food banks. “The stuff in these boxes is not ending up in a landfill,” co-author Max Cadji, the founder of Phat Beets Produce, told me. “They’re just tapping into the same marketplace as the guys who make shredded carrots.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/152596/hungry-harvest-box-ug...

Isn't this very similar to how Grocery Outlet operates?

And farmer's markets, but... quietly.

https://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/fa...

That was a very well written and researched article. As a Florida produce consumer, thank you for linking that.

The article says the situation is a lot more complicated than that. It quoted a farmer who said that much of the food it sold to Imperfect Produce had previously been plowed under. Or it had been given to a food bank for free, but the IP money help pay their expenses.

The author's main point is that too much food is being produced, but she doesn't really explain what she thinks a better solution would be.

The basic idea is good though. A supermarket in my area has a produce clearance rack where they put all the dodgy produce at significant discount, usually around 75% off. It's quite useful for produce that one is going to eat right away or cook, and the wilted and almost overripe quality isn't too different from fairly expensive family owned small produce stalls in big cities which often don't have enough turnover to keep fresh produce stocked.

Yeah. We had a store here that used to mark down the very ripe bananas about 70%. My wife thinks bananas are at their best at that point and would frequently buy a bag. I don't think the bag ever made it home without being short at least one banana.

I wouldn't have called it spam. Solutions to societal problems are a common topic here, and the submitter has a long and consistent history of quality submissions.

>You get mostly normal produce at average prices

The article says the prices are cheaper. Do you have evidence this is not so?

I was a subscriber for a while and I am pretty sure it was more expensive than the store, IIRC it was about $35 - you can definitely get more than a small box of vegetables at the store for $35.

I think the bottom line is that courier delivery is not as cheap as depot delivery (i.e. to the store) although it can be more convenient (i.e. Blue Apron, Amazon, etc) I didn't find produce boxes to be convenient at all, because unless you actively manage your deliveries you end up needing to go shopping anyways to get other ingredients to fill out recipes made from the stuff that comes in the box (like, fennel doesn't go with everything, I don't really like chard by itself, etc) and as noted above the veggies are frequently past their prime.

When I tried them their produce was on par with what I could buy for a fraction of the price from Fred Meyers. Freddys isn't exactly the gold standard for produce quality though, at least my location.

I see this company as nothing more than well-off people trying to feel good.

My fiancee specifically looks for and buys the imperfect produce when she goes to the market. She sees it as an easy way to reduce food waste as there are a lot of people who specifically avoid ugly vegetables.

I'll have to train my mind to overcome my subconscious bias to ugly fruits while looking at other criteria.

200,000 customers is 200,000 customers more than me.

I like the founding story - inspired by the food waste at a canteen - but that waste has not always been wasted. Before we got into a problem feeding cows to cows the slops from canteens were fed to pigs.

And we all know that those ready meals are not made from ingredients as beautiful as those shown on the labels.

In some parts of the world you get the likes of Lidl, Aldi and the market in town selling 'Class 2' produce - the ugly stuff. But a big box of Class 2 veg in your home - how long is that going to last before you need to throw it out?

Spending $115 to get a box of the stuff three times a week for a family of five works out as the organic large box. The non-organic stuff does not add up to that, so either they are on the premium large box and chomping the stuff down or they are adjusting their order a lot.

Maybe the money to be made is in customisations to the box?

But they still are not in profit and have taken $47 million in funding. I know they have to have the vans but can't vans be financed as you go rather than paid for up front? And isn't the 'ugly' produce going to be discarded anyway so therefore tantamount to being 'free'? I am surprised that anyone has invested so much in this uber-esque land grab.

People need to do all their shopping for groceries and not just the veg if one of the green goals is to have less driving, but all these veg delivery things just add more vans and lorries on the roads.

Call me cynical but I doubt that they are serving working class poor families that can't afford cars. I suspect they are facilitating another way for people to consume and another VC funded runway with exit plan. They could sell out to Amazon Whole Foods if those 200,000 people come back for more.

I noticed yesterday that the produce I buy from the asian grocery is cheaper than the supermarket.

It's also bigger. I wonder if the produce gets sorted into smaller stuff to the supermarkets and bigger to the discount produce retailers.

Supermarkets seem to change their approach too. Woolworths has it's own brand of "odd bunch" https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/search/products?searchTer... which is the imperfect produce at lower prices. You can buy it right next to the standard ones.

And from the customer side, that's much easier than a subscription service.

This service is great if you are constantly cooking and/or consuming the entire box. It became difficult to keep up with orders and 2-3 boxes went to waste. I stopped after realizing exactly what I wanted to consume and just went to store when I needed it. It was great in that I lived next to a store. Felt like I was "contributing" by using this service but it appears as other commenters have said that this food normally did not go to waste in the first place.

My problem with buying imperfect produce is that I cannot tell what imperfections are a problem (mold, rot, contains insects, etc.) and I don't really trust a corporation not to sell me something unsafe/disgusting.

(I say disgusting because even though I realize that something like fruit containing insects likely wouldn't harm me that's something I'm just not okay with.)

We use a service like this. We live in a rural area and going to the grocery store is a 20 minute drive. Getting organic produce delivered to your door at non organic prices is a win win for us. We stock up at bulk stores for more shelf stable goods and only go the grocery store a few times a month.

"People generally didn't buy something in grocery stores that was dinged, scratched or otherwise marred. They'd eat stuff that had so little nutrition that they might as well eat the box but woe-betide if the box was crushed."

-- John Ringo, "Live Free or Die"

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