The Guardian | Easy wins: imperfect produce
Save money, reduce waste and eat more plants – a subscription for fine-but-odd fruit and veg kicks a lot of goals.
While 5 million Australians go hungry each year, an estimated 7.3m tonnes of food is wasted. In Australia, up to 25% of all vegetables produced never leave the farm, often because they are too oddly shaped for the grocery store.
All the while, these reject fruits and vegetables – also known as “imperfect produce” – remain perfectly good to eat.
Though the numbers sound overwhelming, a solution may emerge from the world of small-scale startup subscriptions.
Subscription shopping exists not just for the makeup-lovers and book-fanatics. Buying a subscription box of imperfect groceries may just be the most convenient way to simultaneously offload your weekly shop for fresh produce and reduce waste.
Farmer’s Pick, a Melbourne-based service, has found a home for more than 100 tonnes of fresh, oddly bent and sometimes blemished produce. Straight from local farms, the produce varies week-to-week, and subscription options cater to single and family households.
Give the strangely-bent carrot or bumpy potato a try and you’ll support local farmers, reduce your contribution to a growing volume of wasted food each year, and you may just find you consume more fresh produce than ever.
Read it straight from The Guardian here.
