Do Ugly Boxes Really Reduce Food Waste?
We, as a society, spend tons of food, some of which account for 40% of everything we produce . It takes a lot of money, time, effort, water and fertilizer to grow the fruits and vegetables we throw away. Some companies try to help by selling boxes full of warped products that they say would otherwise go to waste, but the situation is not so simple.
Food is really rejected for being ugly
First, what’s the problem with “ugly” foods? As one company, Imperfect Produce, explains, completely edible foods can be rejected for a variety of reasons, such as:
- To be too big or too small than stores and consumers expect.
- Have cosmetic defects (such as fruit with scars on the skin)
- Unusual shape or color
- Insufficient demand (for example, broccoli leaves, which are edible but usually not available in stores)
- Too much supply (when the crop is overproduced)
In truth, there is no person checking grocery boxes to say, “Hmm, I don’t want this one in my store,” Dana Ganders , a food waste expert, told Lifehacker. Instead, there are many USDA evaluations that define what a fruit or vegetable should look like before it can be categorized as “gourmet” or “not.” 1 “or” for processing “. In places like grocery stores, they order the variety they want.
Ugly foods aren’t necessarily wasted
The ugliness of many cultures means they fall into a lower category than those sold in the supermarket. Plant scientist Sara Taber points out the path that different varieties of produce can take:
The high-quality product goes to high-end grocery stores and pays for the entire harvest. Second-class products go into food service, lower-end groceries, grocery cans – and now from sellers of ugly products. A heavily deformed and discolored product is processed into juice, jam, baked goods, salsa, soups, guacamole or other products. Packaging businesses send waste (rotten food that cannot be recovered by any means) to be treated in nearby fields as fertilizer or, in extreme cases, take it to landfill (although they avoid this if possible because it costs money).
Gunders notes that some products don’t have a lot of secondary markets: fresh cucumbers, for example, tend to be thrown away. On the other hand, ugly apples can easily turn into pie or juice.
Food banks and ugly food companies use the same variety of food, and one CSA supporting food justice programs wrote that it looks like Imperfect Produce is interfering with its business . Food banks, however, don’t seem to be grappling with the movement of ugly foods; In some ways, their goals are synergistic , and most believe donations have not been harmed.
Gunders notes that much of product marketing is on time. If everyone has a good year to grow a certain crop, the market will be oversaturated and food could be wasted because there are too many; it may even be unprofitable to harvest. In these situations, food banks often end up in abundance, no matter who else is buying. Gunders also notes that food banks still don’t process tons of fresh produce, although this is changing; they are mainly intended for processing canned food and semi-finished products. And they don’t just rely on donations for what people don’t want; they buy food from farmers and other sources. So the question of whether ugly manufacturing companies are bumping into their businesses is difficult to answer, but so far it doesn’t seem like a major issue.
Ugliness is not the source of most food waste
In truth, most food waste does not occur in the recycling stage , which is the goal of companies and initiatives that produce ugly foods. Some of these occur on the farm, but most often after the food has been purchased. Restaurants and grocery stores waste food, and so do we. People who spoil food in our kitchens? We throw away a ton .
So when I asked Gunders what we can do, she emphasized reducing her own food waste. For many problems, individual solutions don’t matter much, but this is a case where shopping and cooking skills can make a big difference. She recommends:
- Plan what you are going to eat and then shop around those specific meals.
- When you have leftovers, put them in the freezer right away if you don’t plan on eating them soon.
- “Shop” for your fridge before you go to the store to use up what you have and not buy duplicates.
- Define a day or meal (give it a catchy name like “Waste Less on Wednesdays”) to make soups or other versatile foods that you can use from whatever you have in the fridge.
So far, there is no solid research into the impact of ugly produce boxes (Gunders suspects that they are still too small a market to have much of a hit anyway), but there is research to suggest that people who buy the most fruits and vegetables, with a view to eating healthy, they are more likely to spoil their foods. So buying a box of food, ugly or not, is not a good idea unless you know you will actually use it. If a bunch of imperfect cabbage rot in your refrigerator, it will still be wasted.