"In terms of taste, ugly vegetables are just as good as regular vegetables," explains Brumsack. Indeed, when catering meals for corporations in the Berlin area, Brumsack and Krawkowski find customers remarkably receptive. Some 26% would buy the cheapest option, and 10% say they would actively choose imperfect produce. But we're already getting emails asking when our first shop is opening."Īccording to a poll by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 45% of Brits say the appearance of fruit and vegetables doesn't matter. "Of course people buy regular produce because that's what they see on ads and posters. "They told us customers don't want ugly fruit, but that's because customers are not familiar with it," explains Moritz Glück, another co-founder. They developed the concept after failed attempts to convince supermarket chains to sell ugly produce. Ugly Fruits' business plan, which envisages trendy shops selling exclusively misshapen fruit, has already attracted proposals from potential partners. And in America, the Society of St Andrew, together with local farmers, run a growing operation saving wonky produce.īut, as Culinary Misfits shows, there's a business case for ugly veggies. Earlier this summer, they rescued 11,000 cauliflowers from landfill. In the UK, Feeding the 5000 runs a national gleaning network, whose members harvest misshapen produce and donate it to charity. ![]() "And it's a huge waste of energy in agriculture to grow food that's thrown away." "Not eating food that has been produced is unsustainable," observes co-founder Daniel Plath. Three other young Germans have hit international headlines with their campaign Ugly Fruits, which uses suggestive slogans to attract consumers to rejected greens. The FAO estimates that by 2050 global food production must increase by 70%.īrumsack and Krakowski's business, Culinary Misfits, is part of a new trend to utilise the misshapen produce. Besides, a quickly growing world population needs the food. Wasted food also uses scarce water and land resources. ![]() According to Wrap, the sustainability agency, each year 90,000 tonnes of produce in the UK alone is sent to landfill, where it rots and emits methane into the atmosphere. That's a problem, and not just because it's wasteful. The Soil Association calculates that in the UK, 20-40% of produce is rejected because it's misshapen. In Europe, the reasons are primarily cosmetic. ![]() In some parts of the world, that's because there are no efficient means of storing it. Worldwide, almost 40% of fruit and vegetables will go to waste before they even reach consumers, according to figures from the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
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