It seems supermarkets can't win

"Ugly food is marketed as a way to reduce food waste. But selling it cheap won’t help, because it doesn’t address the underlying issue: that we’re buying too much food."

Bethaney Turner, Assistant Professor, International Studies, University of Canberra.

I cannot quite believe how I missed this. Woolworths apparently launched their Odd Bunch campaign back in December 2014. But I only just noticed these products in our local Woolworths a week or so ago - April 2017. Have they been there all along or have they only just come to affluent Eltham? I really couldn't say for sure - unless I asked - and I'm not going to do that. I was really quite impressed by what I thought was a new initiative of selling blemished or mis-shaped fruit and vegetables at a lower price. For not only does it help us, the consumers, but it also helps the producers as well.

“There are many reasons why there are marks on fruit and veg, whether it's the wind or the way it sat on the stem. But the eating experience doesn’t change. It’s an opportunity for us to take more of the crop from our growers. They’ll be able to sell more to us directly, leading to less waste.” Donald Keith - Woolworths

Traditionally supermarket food has to look perfect. What it tastes like is not quite as important - although increasingly, this is less true. So the poor farmers waste some 25% of their crop because it is not perfect looking. Now, however, they don't have to throw it away or plough it back into the ground, they can sell it to Woolworths who will sell it to us at cheaper prices. I bet there is still some produce that doesn't even make the Odd Bunch standards though.

I first noticed the carrots the other day - only 90 cents for a kilo as opposed to $1.20 or something similar for the 'perfect' ones. And I have to say the ones I bought are not even very misshapen. Since then I have been checking out what they have in this part of their produce section - avacadoes, lemons, pears ...

It seems the idea came from Europe. In 2014, concerned at food waste, the EU announced a year against food waste. A much broader concept of course, than selling misshapen fruit and vegetables. This was their logo.

It seems that the French supermarket chain Intermarché - followed, shortly thereafter, by Sainsbury's in England - began an 'odd bunch' type of campaign. Jamie Oliver, patron saint of Woolworths is English of course, and he may have had something to do with it being introduced here - but then again maybe not. I have no doubt that the Australian supermarkets keep an eye on what is happening overseas.

Anyway the long and the short of it is that, according to the season, Woolworths is now selling less than perfect fruit and vegetables for low prices. Their argument is that it is not only good stuff but it's cheap too. How did I miss this? Basically I have no idea and it just confirms that I'm not very observant. This happened three years ago!

But secondly - a win/win situation you would think - and Woolworths should be applauded. A win for the consumers and a win for the farmers. But no - there's always someone with a counter view as the The Conversation website showed.

"Australian households throw out up to A$8 billion worth of food each year. The environmental impacts range from wasted water and fertiliser, to significant methane emissions from rotting food in rubbish tips."

So it seems the wicked supermarkets are just trying to make us buy more so that we can waste still more. They just can't win can they?

Well I certainly don't think that supermarkets do things out of the kindness of their hearts. They are only interested in making a profit. We all know that. But in doing so, if they exploit a growing concern for wastage and they attempt to address that wastage, even if only a little, then surely they should get just a tiny bit of applause.

Bethaney Turner, on The Conversation website, maintains that people who grow their own or buy at farmer's markets (and no doubt those who buy organic) waste less. We know the third world does not waste, but then they don't have anything to waste. Maybe our western home growers and organic buyers do waste less - it certainly costs them more to buy it - and maybe this makes them appreciate it more.

I would doubt, however, that those that grow their own very probably do not avoid waste. For if you grow your own fruit and vegetables you may well get an overwhelming glut that you simply cannot use, even if you give it away to all of your friends and relatives. My sister, for example, has a really productive apple tree. She tries every conceivable way of eating, cooking and preserving apples, gives heaps away but still has too many to use. They end up rotting on the ground. There are even too many for the compost heap. She is considering putting a box on the pavement outside her house, but even this may not work. And there are only so many apples you can eat without having had enough and never wanting to see another apple again. And olives - if you have a productive olive tree - what to do with them? You can't just eat them straight from the tree and they take a large amount of complicated effort to turn into tasty olives that can be eaten or cooked with. If you grow your own you cannot choose the rate at which your crops produce. It's usually feast or famine with a glut when it comes to the feast.

"ugly food helps to perpetuate a food system that undervalues food, in which consumers routinely buy too much and throw away the leftovers." The Conversation

I think I find this a marginally élitist statement. If you are poor you want to buy food as cheaply as you can. And you probably don't buy too much because you can't afford it - even at cheap prices. Yes, people like me, who are not poor, can get carried away by the notion of bargains and buy too much. And maybe we do end up by wasting some - or eating too much which is almost as bad. But, on the whole, I do try very hard to use everything I buy. Or give it away to my family. Or invite them over for a feed. If I see something is beginning to look on the turn I use it in my next meal - indeed it is often the inspiration for my next meal.

"charging lower prices for ugly fruit and vegetables also neglects the fact that the same labour is required to produce and harvest crops, regardless of their appearance."

Also true, but at least the farmers can now sell their odd looking produce rather than wasting it. They sell more which must be a win. I do wonder though whether there is now more labour needed to sort the odd from the perfect - but then I guess they would have had to do that anyway. Now they just have to package it differently - which might be an extra cost, but not more than not selling it at all. We assume they get at least a small profit from selling the unloved stuff.

Anyway - small steps. I think every little step is an advance. And, of course, the small steps are commercially driven. How else can you get big companies to do such things? If there's nothing in it for them they won't do it. Now we just have to work on ways of reducing waste from the stuff we buy. Maybe there should be boxes at the supermarket into which we can put our unwanted, but still useable food for distribution to those in need. This was brought home to us with the Easter egg hunt thing - what to do with those that we had saved for the poor? It ought to be really simple to find an way of passing them on. And supermarkets would be obvious collection points. Surely some of those organisations that do this sort of thing could work with them. But then, seeing as how I did not notice the Odd Bunch campaign, I will now probably find that the supermarkets and the distributing of surplus goods organisations, are all doing this anyway.

But where to take those surplus Easter eggs?

Coles, by the way, does not seem to do a similar thing to the Odd Bunch campaign. Which is interesting as they have had three years to think about it.