(Im)Perfect

Solution to Food Waste

Would you buy a crooked carrot or an ugly apple? Most shoppers won’t, even though that apple is just
as tasty and healthy as one that looks perfect. Because of that customer attitude, a huge amount of
fresh fruit and vegetables is wasted every year—in the U.S., an estimated 60 million tons of produce
won’t be sold, mostly because of its appearance. Supermarkets refuse to buy fruit and vegetables that
they consider imperfect. When you consider the resources that go into growing all that food and moving
it from the farm to the market, the amount of money lost is even higher.

However, there are more and more organizations that are working to end this waste. One of them is
Imperfect Produce, located in San Francisco, California. Imperfect Produce works with growers in its
area to collect fruit and vegetables that are considered “too ugly” to sell at a supermarket. It packs that
produce into boxes and delivers them to people who have subscribed to the service. Subscribers pay
30–50% less for their produce, and it doesn’t go to waste.

Similar ideas around the world are aiming to reduce food waste at the same time that they help feed the
hungry, such as farmers who allow people to collect the food left in fields. There are also organizations
that collect usable food that supermarkets would throw out because it has been in the store too long;
they take the food to poor neighborhoods. People are thinking differently about the fruit and
vegetables they eat, finding perfection in the imperfect.