‘Ugly’ produce gets a chance
Wonky-shaped vegetables and imperfect fruit are heading back onto supermarket shelves at prices much lower than their cosmetically-perfect counterparts.
From tomorrow, Countdown stores are launching The Odd Bunch – a range of misshapen fruit and veges.
The initiative hopes to reduce the more than 120,000 tonnes of food going into landfills every year, costing the country around $872 million a year.
Countdown general manager Chris Fisher said: ‘‘Shoppers have long favoured and demanded perfect-looking produce, but we hope to challenge that thinking with The Odd Bunch’’.
‘‘When people see the quality is the same they’ll change [their buying habits].’’
Love Food Hate Waste spokeswoman Jenny Marshall said we’re all guilty of wasting food and shoppers can be overly picky about what they buy.
Love Food Hate Waste, which campaigns for food waste reduction, found the average New Zealand households send 79 kilograms of edible food to landfills every year, and on average households threw out $563 of food in 2015.
The first produce to join The Odd Bunch will be hail-damaged stone fruit and carrots, with more fruit and vegetables appearing on shelves in the coming months.
The range would be available based on season and supply, and stock would vary from store to store. The Odd Bunch would be available online when it’s stocked in-store.
Shoppers spoken to this week in Auckland were in favour of the concept.
Young shopper Ava Sanders, 10, said she thought the misshapen and different sized vegetables ‘‘looked more fun to eat then the regular ones’’.
Franziska Poschi and Alex Fulton said they would actively search out misshapen produce at the supermarket if they knew it was going to be cheaper.
‘‘As long as it is fresh, I really don’t mind if it is misshapen or damaged,’’ Fulton said.