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Comment by the_watcher | Hacker News Reader

Can you clarify how ignoring things like Imperfect Produce helps? I'm open to it, but my impression was that Imperfect emerged simply because there was perfectly edible food being discarded because it looked off (anyone who has lived in an area anywhere near industrial agriculture already knew this due to experience with someone showing up at a soccer game with a bunch of fresh strawberries that looked weird but tasted better than anything at Safeway).

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My understanding is that Imperfect Produce is, or at least is accused of, taking food that would have been donated to food banks or processed. So those weird looking strawberries were going to be made into Jam, not discarded.

Imperfect created a market for a good that already had a market and generally purchase from post-producer sellers. They aren't large enough to make a dent in the producers' waste.

Theoretically it (or something like it) could create a viable market for the food whose cost goes below market price or is not pretty, but it would have to do it at the wholesale level. Not cases of produce but dozens of truckloads a week.

In their particular case they are trying to make produce a D2C product so they have two challenges: a) build a market for a good and b) make D2C perishable profitable. For reference on b, see Blue Apron.

USDA: "60% of imperfect produce’s products are sourced from traditional wholesale channels rather than farms."

Got it. No idea if those accusations are true or not but that is at least a potentially valid reason to ignore Imperfect as an effective solution to food waste.

It's a gimmick. If it were meaningful it would cost less than regular, as it already does as non-gimmick farmstands and low-end grocery stores that rich yuppies don't go to.

It definitely does in my experience.

Simply put, the premise of Imperfect Produce is incorrect. Except for some leafy greens (lettuce juice, anyone?), we have useful economic uses for second-tier produce.

The food industry isn't dumb. Where do you think all the produce at Asian markets come from?

With regards to Asian market produce, I think this is not necessarily always true. It's a mix of second-rate produce and very different (and perhaps very local) supply chains.

You can almost think of Asian produce markets as farmers markets.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981063 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14248585.

I used Imperfect Produce for a while and I'm not sure if it's actually helping that much. A lot of the produce didn't actually look different and they had a pretty consistent rotation of products which implied to me that it might not be excess. Kind of like how most outlet stores actually plan and manufacturer products specifically for the outlet.

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