France Reduced Food Waste by Promoting the Unsightly

Have you ever gone to your local grocer and seen an ugly orange? How about an unattractive eggplant, or a disfigured carrot? No? That's probably because much of the world's produce goes through an aethetic selection process. Traditionally, what isn't pretty to consumers won't be sold in supermarkets, so supermarket suppliers will not buy ugly produce from growers, even if it is just as good as the "perfect" counterparts.

Credit

This in turn leads to food waste, as those ugly fruits and veggies are tossed at a tune of 300 million tons away per year.

In an act to reduce food waste, save money, and broaden the minds of consumers, the French chain market Intermarche began the "Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables" movement. All Intermarche had to do was buy the ugly produce at a fraction of the price of the "normal" produce, and put them in their own special stand with some informational signs all around, and sit back as customers eagerly bought the cheap yet unattractive produce.

Credit

To further advertise that these unsightly fruits and veggies were just as good as the pretty ones, ugly soup and fruit juice were made and distributed to customers.

Luckily, this movement worked, and 1.2 tons of ugly produce were sold per store on average during only the first two days. In addition, overall store traffic increased by 24%. This movement was a successful trial run that proves that consumers will make less wasteful choices when given monetary benefits (ugly produce was 30% cheaper) and free stuff (soup and juice).

Hopefully in time, more supermarkets across the globe will adopt similar low-waste practices to stop unnecessary food waste in its tracks. Watch the short yet charming video below: