Ugly Fruits (and Vegetables) Get a Makeover

The “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign was created for Intermarché, a supermarket chain in France, to see if customers would be willing to buy imperfect produce at a reduced price. The advertising campaign includes posters and television ads, including the one below in which an “Ugly Carrot” gets a pep talk. The goal was to reduce the more than 660,000 pounds of food wasted in the European Union each year.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/2 ... -ipad&_r=0

The goal was to reduce the more than 660,000 pounds of food wasted in the European Union each year.

Interesting, as the EU's overzealous standards and impenetrable documents are the primary reason that so much perfectly good produce can't be sold at retail.

Last week I was in Kroger in Virginia and they were throwing away perfectly good product into the trash bin and they said it would be composted. There were mangos, peppers and cucumbers all perfect but with a small brown spot or two being tossed into the trash with plastic bags. So we asked and they said this was their policy, that if there is a blemish, it gets tossed. How about giving some of that to food banks Kroger? Farmers in California are struggling to produce food for people with very little water and stores like Kroger are throwing it away into compost just because some corporate policy dictates that consumers will not buy something with a brown spot on it. We went around back and they have compost bins with 4 padlocks on each corner so it was evident that they would rather crush it into compost than give it to hungry people. Really saddened me. I lined up all the produce that I took out of their bin around it and took pics of it. I asked if I could buy it at a discount and was told NO. It was going to compost. I don't know how to post pics here or they would be included.

Waking up this thread...

Does anyone know where to purchase "ugly" produce in the Chicago area? I recently had a couple pecks of apples that were slowly turning bad in my fridge, so I decided to make applesauce from almost all of them, and it was spectacular! I don't want to go back to store-bought applesauce, but I also don't want to have to use full-price apples to make my own if I can get reduced-price ugly apples somewhere.

Any leads?

Harvest time has a tall shelf devoted to them in the back next to the employees area.

I don't shop at Stanley's a lot because I usually feel like that's most of their stuff.

Jazzfood wrote:Harvest time has a tall shelf devoted to them in the back next to the employees area.

Likewise at Fresh Farms. There's a rack with nearly dead stuff in the back corner of the store near the fish and potatoes. I've mostly noticed veggies there, but haven't looked close enough to see if there's fruit as well.

Most weeks between October and June, I purchase 60# of produce for $10 from one of two local charities in the Tucson/Phoenix area. As much as like I produce, that is more than I can use so I have developed a number of neighbors who are interested in produce. The rest gets sent off to one of the local food banks.

The source of this produce is the produce brokerages in Rio Rico, AZ. The brokers purchase produce from the large growers in Western Mexico and sell to wholesalers and other customers in the western and midwestern states.

Since produce has a very limited shelf life and the brokers are competing with brokers representing other regions, there are a lot of leftovers. In the past, most of the excess produce would be dumped at the Santa Cruz County (AZ) dump. Now, the produce is "rescued" and sent out to the local charities.

The one bad thing about this situation is that I cannot always identify what I will get ahead of time. Last week, we received a lot of tomatillos and poblano peppers and iceburg lettuce. Next week, it may be five different types of tomatoes.

The quality of the produce is pretty decent. I am used to surplus produce with a 70% yield. Most of the time, this produce has a 80-90% yield.

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Since Kroger's was trashed above, I have to mention a couple of things.

In the state of Virginia, a state where I worked in the food service industry for three years, it is very common for waste food to be sold off to hog farmers for feeding. A couple of the places that I worked for participated in that program.

In this area, Kroger's send its surplus to the local food banks. Quite often the local food banks are processing the leftovers from Kroger's and Safeway when I am dropping off produce.

As a general rule, Kroger's does NOT sell second-rate produce. They will sell day-old bread and occasionally give away some meat that has not sold on its expiration date.

One should also remember that a lot of the less attractive produce goes to the canning factory where such fruit and vegetables is welcome.

jlawrence01 wrote:As a general rule, Kroger's does NOT sell second-rate produce. They will sell day-old bread and occasionally give away some meat that has not sold on its expiration date.

They will now...
‘Ugly’ produce brand on the way from Kroger

Pickuliar Picks label part of effort to eliminate food waste, hunger

The Kroger Co. plans to introduce an “ugly produce” brand in stores early next year.

Called Pickuliar Picks, the brand’s first items are slated to start appearing in Kroger Co. supermarkets in the first quarter of 2019, according to Nicole Davis, senior innovation manager for Our Brands at Kroger. She unveiled plans for the program last week in a presentation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Food Forward Summit in Washington.

The tagline for Pickuliar Picks is “imperfect but perfectly delicious.” Davis noted that 6 billion pounds of fruit and vegetables go unused each year because of below-standard appearance or size, despite being fine for people to eat.