You hardly ever see a certain type of carrot in a supermarket. It’s the two-legged creature that appears to have attempted to move away from the ground. Farmers are familiar with it. Customers typically don’t because that carrot was removed, put aside, and sent somewhere quieter at some point in the supply chain, between the field and the produce aisle. That location was frequently a landfill for decades. Slowly and somewhat awkwardly, that is beginning to change, and the change speaks to our current eating habits.
When you enter a central Florida Walmart, you may notice a bin of apples that seem a little strange. They may be freckled, smaller than normal, or shaped like they were squeezed by an impatient hand. Building on an ugly potato program in Britain, the chain started carrying these in 300 stores back in 2016. For a company with over 4,000 produce-selling locations, this is a minor change, but when Walmart shifts its direction, the rest of the industry usually follows. More than half of its US sales are made up of groceries. The growers quickly notice when the buyers there begin to accept bumpy apples.
It is not surprising that Europe arrived earlier. The EU has committed to halving food waste by the mid-2030s, and Britain has been running its “Love Food Hate Waste” campaign at least since 2007. WeFood is a store in Copenhagen that only sells cheap produce that has gone bad or is past its expiration date. It doesn’t look like a charity bin when you walk past its shelves. It depicts a somewhat disorganized, somewhat less expensive grocery store, which is essentially what it is.
All of this is based on blunt numbers. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, 40% of food produced in the United States is never consumed. More than half of fruits and vegetables are lost between farm and fork, making them the worst. According to WRAP data, households in the UK alone discard roughly 4.5 million tonnes of edible food annually, with potatoes topping the list. A very British detail is that bread and milk come next.
The food isn’t the only deeper issue. It’s everything that was involved. Land, labor, diesel, fertilizer, and water. All of that is dragged into the trash can by a discarded zucchini. Additionally, it releases methane, which is about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a century, as soon as it lands in a landfill. According to the most reliable estimates, 8–10% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are caused by food waste. That is many times the footprint of aviation, a fact that still seems to shock people.
Some people are skeptical, and they have a valid point. Produce that is truly ugly is rarely thrown out completely, according to critics. Jam is made from strawberries. Famously, in 1986, misshapen carrots were transformed into baby carrots—a marketing trick that subtly absorbed a mountain of waste. The food industry already routes a large amount of produce that is rejected for appearance into other products, as the Produce Marketing Association has long pointed out. So, is the problem being solved by the wonky vegetable movement, or is it just being rearranged?
Most likely a combination of the two. Companies like Oddbox in the UK and Hungry Harvest in the Mid-Atlantic have created legitimate businesses out of the void, delivering weekly boxes of rescued produce that, according to Evan Lutz, the CEO of Hungry Harvest, frequently appear completely normal. Just as important as the logistics is the change in consumer attitudes. A growing number of people believe that flavor and freshness should take precedence over symmetry. It’s still unclear if that perception will endure during a recession, when consumers may turn to whatever is most affordable and attractive. The bumpy carrot is currently having a moment. It’s difficult not to support it.
