SHOPPERS TURN TO IMPERFECT PRODUCE AS FOOD COSTS SOAR’

Buying misfit fruits, vegetables helps fight waste while helping people eat better at lower cost.

On the outskirts of Barrie, Ont, sunlight washes over the outcast cucumber and parsley stacked on skids at Eat Impact’s Warehouse.

Workers at the online grocer sort and pack containers with these rejects and misfits – tentacle carrots, scarred bananas, bulbous potatoes – for home deliveries across southern Ontario.

The goal is helping people eat better, save money and fight food waste all at the same time,” said Anna Stegink, who founded Eat Impact in late 2022.

With prices soaring and budgets stretched, consumers are turning increasingly to so-called imperfect food to save on produce that a fresh crop of online grocers says is just as tasty – if a little gnarled.

Billions of pounds of Canadian produce go to waste every year, much of it because it fails to live up to the strict cosmetic criteria adhered to by the retail industry.

“It either rots in the fridge, the landfill or the farmer’s field,” Stegink said.

Mainstream retailers sell primarily first grade fruits and vegetables, leaving farmers and distributors stuck with heaps of fresh, perfectly edible but not quite photogenic produce.

Cucumbers, for example, must conform to tight length and width restrictions and be straight, only “moderately tapered” and of “good characteristic green colour” to achieve first grade classification, federal agricultural regulations state.

Meanwhile grocery bills keep climbing. Canadian families will pay nearly $1,800 more on average for groceries this year than they did in 2022, according to an annual report on the food industry by researchers at four Canadian universities.

“Prioritizing eating healthy and buying this fresh produce has become harder  for many of us,” Stegink said. “Our idea was to start Eat impact to connect imperfect, ugly and surplus produce with people that are happy to eat it.”

She’s not alone. Further west, online grocer Spud says it saved early 84,000 pounds of imperfect produce from the landfill last year by selling everything from chipped apples to odd-shaped oranges  across British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast as well as the Calgary and Edmonton areas.

Subscribers save up to 50% on their items compared with traditional brick and mortar outlets, said manager Emma McDonald. They have the added benefit of eating the fresher food made possible by direct-to-the-doorstep delivery that bypasses the produce aisle. About 90% of its inventory turns over within 48 hours, she said.

Given the savings , waste awareness and bent toward regional organic goods, it’s no surprise that many subscribers skew younger.

“We’re serving families and multi-person households that are a bit busier, that are looking to save time or are prioritizing that organic, local aspect,” McDonald said, noting that Spud has offered imperfect produce for 8 years – though business has ramped up recently.

“A lot of our customers are physically impaired and can’t get to the grocery store themselves. And some people who might rely on takeout now have these options to make healthy meals that aren’t hurting their wallets,’ she added.