What’s the Attraction Behind Ugly Produce?

Advocates for ugly produce emerged in the past couple years as well in the U.S., including Californian Jordan Figueiredo. He decided to use social medial to spread love for disfigured produce and runs the website EndFoodWaste.org and the Twitter handle @UglyFruitAndVeg, which now has 81,500 followers. It also offers recipes and tips on how to use the cast-offs.

But the bigger goal for his work and others embracing ugly fruit was to convince Walmart, Whole Foods, and other grocers to sell ugly fruits and vegetables. Doug Rauch, former president at Trader Joe’s, also took up the charge and set up the Daily Table grocer in a poorer Boston neighborhood called Dorchester to sell, among other things, blemished food.

The ugly produce movement continues to gain followers. For example, Hy-Vee, West Des Moines, Iowa, an employee-owned corporation operating more than 240 retail stores across eight Midwestern states, partnered in January with Robinson Fresh, Eden Prairie, Minn., one of the largest produce companies in the world that offers produce called Misfits.

“The beauty of this program is that the produce tastes the same and is of the same high quality, it just looks different. As the saying goes, ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover.’ The same is true for Misfits fruits and vegetables,” John Griesenbrock, Hy-Vee’s vice president of produce/HealthMarkets, said in a statement when it announced the program in January 2017. “As a company with several focused environmental efforts, we feel it’s our responsibility to help educate consumers and dispel any misperceptions about produce that is not cosmetically perfect.”

Hy-Vee quotes United Nations estimates that 20 to 40 percent of produce harvested each year is thrown away because it does not meet USDA sizing standards for store shelves. By selling Misfits, Hy-Vee is aligning with the USDA’s goal to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2030.

“We understand that there is product left in the field because farmers don’t think there’s a market for it,” Hunter Winton, Robinson Fresh general manager, added when the Hy-Vee agreement was announced. “With the Misfits program, farmers have an outlet to sell more produce and customers have an opportunity to save money and help reduce waste.”

Misfits Find Their Niche

Misfits produce is now available in almost all of the more than 240 Hy-Vee grocery stores. The product line has caught on in other regions, including in March at Hannaford Brothers of Scarborough, Maine, a Delhaize America company owned by Ahold Delhaize group of the Netherlands. The company has more than 180 stores in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, but is starting Hannaford Misfits, in collaboration with Robinson Fresh, initially at 15 Maine stores.

“These aren’t culled products that aren’t otherwise sold in stores,” says Eric Blom, Hannaford spokesman. “We cull products one to four times a day to give bruised or discolored produce to food pantries. We donated 23 million pounds last year.

“Instead, Misfits is specific produce that otherwise wouldn’t be purchased,” he adds. “Supermarkets [typically] wouldn’t purchase fruit and vegetables that are nonstandard such as being misshapen, off-color, or smaller. Now we buy Misfits that are nonstandard and sold in addition to usual fruit.”

Hannaford did run a pilot project for Misfits first in Albany, N.Y., in collaboration with Robinson. The Misfits are sold in various-sized bags. Blom says the grocer has no demographic information yet for purchasers, but others have said millennials are attracted to the concept of reducing food waste and using ugly fruit.

“We were one of the first in the United States to do it,” Blom says, adding that Whole Foods in California also was an early adopter. “We are a company that works hard to reduce food waste. About one third of our 181 stores [already] have zero food waste. And it’s a good option for customers because it costs 30 percent less.”