Americans represent 5% of the world’s population, but generate 30% of the world’s garbage. Buying “ugly” produce is one way our customers are a part of the solution.
“Ugly” produce is a major contributor to global food waste and it’s primarily coming from large scale conventional farms built to stock grocery store shelves. There is a moment in the typical grocery supply chain where produce is evaluated – not on it’s quality – but solely on the way it looks. Simply put, is it weird looking? They’re divided into #1’s and #2’s and the #2’s most often end up in a landfill.
With our model, however, there is no grading of produce beyond quality. We’re not only accepting #2 stuff, we’re paying #1 prices for it. These sweet potatoes, for example, are from Fry Farm. The one on the left is a perfectly good sweet potato but too ugly for grocery store standards so it would end up in a landfill. Our customer still gets a pound of sweet potatoes but one might be a little crooked. Buying local and organic is a great way to reduce food waste because it does not contribute to this evaluation process.
