Embracing Ugly
By Emily Carter
Don't let the eye growing out of your potato distract you from seeing the starchy center — it's the beauty inside that counts! In our time of heightened consciousness, relationships between food production and climate impact are being considered in unconventional ways — and with unconventional produce! According to the USDA, in the United States, between 30% and 40% of the total food supply is wasted, and some of that food waste is because produce is not "pretty" enough for consumer sales. To tackle this issue, companies that deliver ugly produce to non-judgmental customers, eager to save dollars and the planet, have blossomed.
Advertisements from companies like Misfits Market, Imperfect Produce, and Hungry Harvest show misshapen, oversized foods that are unsellable in the eyes of a traditional grocer. These companies prevent wasted produce from entering the landfill, utilizing the resources that went into growing the food, not to mention all the nutrients!
I spoke with Misfits Market's CEO, Abhi Ramesh, about unconventional produce. Ramesh offered insight into the gap his and similar companies are trying to fill.
"There are two main reasons for saving food," Ramesh said. "For one, reintroducing money lost from wasted produce back into the economy will help farms thrive and help to alleviate food insecurity by providing fresh produce anywhere... including food deserts."
The second reason for saving ugly fruits and veggies is to address the environmental impact of wasted food. "Growing and farming food is an environmentally taxing thing to do," Ramesh said.
"There is a lot of water and other resources that go into growing and harvesting food. Those wasted resources have a negative impact on climate change."
The resources saved by buying ugly produce are calculable. Imperfect Produce offers motivating statistics. Buyers can find out how many pounds of produce they diverted from waste, gallons of water saved, and pounds of CO2 prevented from entering the atmosphere.
A misconception about ugly produce is that it is unusable, but a broken piece of broccoli is just as nutritious as any other!
My experience with the Misfits produce box was that most of the items weren't ugly. The items had minuscule damage, if any at all. In my box, I received over a week's worth of produce, including a bunch of organic kale, two heads of broccoli, a bag of mini sweet peppers, a box of lettuce, three apples, several small red potatoes and white onions, and more! Weekly, customers receive different amounts and types of produce depending on what is available. Some companies like Imperfect Produce offer box customization, and dry goods like beans, broth, nuts, pasta, snacks, and soups.
Of course, there is always room to be skeptical. Some people critique ugly produce companies for taking business from Community-Supported Agriculture (CSAs) or preventing unused food from being donated to people in need.
CSA food distribution systems are one of the largest competitors of ugly produce. CSAs exist so people can buy shares of farmer produce prior to harvest, and receive portions when it's available. There are benefits to buying from CSAs, like directly supporting local farmers by giving them a market ahead of growing season. However, some CSAs can be expensive, are regionally seasonal, or are unavailable in some places.
Ramesh also explained assumptions made about what is necessary to donate food.
"Critics assume there is existing infrastructure to connect farms to food banks. This type of efficiency does not exist because there are costs associated with transporting, handling, and packaging the food."
Many farmers struggle to make ends meet, so providing this infrastructure in addition to growing and harvesting food is not economically viable, he said.
"Vegetables are low-cost to begin with, but they are really expensive to transport. It is very difficult for someone to...figure out how to give something away to someone else for free," he said.
Misfits Market, Imperfect Produce, Hungry Harvest, and others may offer an efficient addition to the supply line by investing in farms that lose profits. With the help of companies like these, we can work towards destigmatizing ugly produce while also supporting farmers, preventing food waste, and conserving environmental resources.
Emily Carter is a senior environmental science major at Colby College. She is a proud member of the Cherokee Nation and fine art painter of farm animals. She swoons at the sight of a cow, but loves all animals equally.
