The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement • Hacker News Board

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#81

Post by beat » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

tivert wrote: post #66

jimmywanger wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's waste for the producer. If you stop giving a reason for producers to produce goods, the goods stop being made.

> It's waste for the producer. If you stop giving a reason for producers to produce goods, the goods stop being made. Not in this case: we're talking about growers not manufacturers. A farmer can't tell his beet not to grow in unaesthetic shapes at scale. If he wants to produce X tons of produce, Y% will be edible but "ugly," and there's not a lot he can do about it (absent an uneconomic increase in costs or some fan…

Yes, but in our imaginary world of perfect capitalism, the inherent market flaw is that farmers should simply stop growing ugly vegetables, and only grow beautiful ones. Problem solved!

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#82

Post by phil21 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

sithadmin wrote: post #31

loco5niner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a scheme that systematically undermines access to food for the least advantaged That's quite a claim. Evidence please?

Did you actually read the article linked? Imperfect Produce and similar operations divert food that otherwise would be bound for food banks and other sources of food assistance programs towards more affluent segments of the consumer market.

My parents spent a lifetime barely making ends meet as organic vegetable farmers, and will be living the rest of their retirement in what amounts to basic poverty.

Anything that increased their revenue on their hard work is a good thing. Asking them to give away otherwise sellable produce is simply asking for someone else to perform charity on your behalf. And if you work in tech you would be a (relatively) rich person asking some of the poorest to do so - which I find both immoral and despicable - since this attitude is so prevalent in these circles.

The moral thing to do if you care, is donate to the food bank or otherwise directly support charity - not asking someone else to do it on your behalf.

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#83

Post by ip26 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #59

forapurpose wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't like seeing groups shoehorn welfare into other areas. If you've got an income (or cash welfare) problem, fix that. I'd prefer a better solution, but when one isn't available (and likely not forthcoming), needs of real people outweigh my economic principles: These people need food. It's the same in engineering: As much as we would wish otherwise, sometimes the 'right' solution isn't available and we need to…

You aren't disagreeing. People need food, so fund a food bank . Don't create absurdly contorted markets to preserve unnecessary waste streams to be reprurposed for food banks.

People need food, so fund a food bank

So they can buy produce from Imperfect Produce?

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#84

Post by village-idiot » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

sithadmin wrote: post #10

jdavis703 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when I was a kid my family made use of food banks. Now that I'm doing better in life I give a cut of each paycheck to my local food bank (The Alameda County Food Bank). I don't feel too bad about ordering from Imperfect Produce, it's convenient way to get produce delivered to your door, and I still wind up buying some things from the farmers market and co-op. On that note, it is good to know what consequences new…

>I don't feel too bad about ordering from Imperfect Produce Stunning cognitive dissonance going on here. Simply redirecting a portion of one's personal funds towards a local food bank doesn't absolve one of the moral wrongs associated with participation in a scheme that systematically undermines access to food for the least advantaged.

And this is how you get people who would agree with you and try to help and drive them away.

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#85

Post by NeedMoreTea » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #81

tivert wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's waste for the producer. If you stop giving a reason for producers to produce goods, the goods stop being made. Not in this case: we're talking about growers not manufacturers. A farmer can't tell his beet not to grow in unaesthetic shapes at scale. If he wants to produce X tons of produce, Y% will be edible but "ugly," and there's not a lot he can do about it (absent an uneconomic increase in costs or some fan…

Yes, but in our imaginary world of perfect capitalism, the inherent market flaw is that farmers should simply stop growing ugly vegetables, and only grow beautiful ones. Problem solved!

That seems to be the contract model supermarkets operate with.

Of course if supermarkets still took "ugly" produce it would sell just fine. Just like it does at the local greengrocers.

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#86

Post by kazinator » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

azrael49 wrote: post #70

gowld wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, you should never buy anything, because anything manufactured might be donated if you hadn't bought it.

In the majority of cases, retailers trash their products (sometimes after physically destroying them) that go unsold. Even for used items, most people are too lazy to donate even things in perfect condition

Problem with unsold stuff is that people don't want it at any price. Even poor people. Before stuff is unsold, it goes on sale for 50% off, or maybe 75% or more. Poorer people can afford it at those lower price points.

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#87

Post by dominicr » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #29

> Imperfect Produce claims it’s saving the world by reducing food waste—and helping farmers by buying surplus “ugly” produce that would have been thrown out. Sounds great. The reality is that this produce would have otherwise gone to food banks, to be redistributed for free. So I feel for the social cause, and I think the business ventures should be much more up-front about what they are and not masquerade as somethi…

> if you want your social cause to not be a victim of market forces, you either need to work yourself into the market correctly...

Social enterprises aren’t responding to a market opportunity in the same way a for profit business is. They are filling a gap that the for-profit market has created or left unfilled and are often doing so by using fragile mechanisms that can easily be destabilised. They don’t really have many options to adapt and they can’t ‘pivot’ to a new customer base to adapt as that would be leaving the original problem unsolved.

In short, I don’t think you can fairly use free market thinking for social enterprises.

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#88

Post by bunderbunder » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #48

horsawlarway wrote: post #24

I... see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Imperfect produce has managed to create a market for food that was previously not able to be sold. Good for them. Does this mean that we may have to restructure social programs as that food becomes sold rather than donated? Sure might. That's ok though. I'd also like to clearly point out that the author misquotes their source for the amount of food donated. The California…

I see nothing wrong with: selling something if a paying market is found for that, instead of giving it away for free. I do see something wrong with: creating that paying market by lying. I suspect most of those conscientious people who think they are helping farmers and reducing food waste would not be paying for this produce if they knew that it was being taken away from poor people.

That's roughly in line with my experience using one of these services.

It really wasn't much of a money saver for us, especially after factoring the delivery fee into account. Worse, it was a terribly inconvenient service. We'd need to place our order the better part of a week before our delivery date, which really threw a monkey wrench into our weekly meal planning. And, for anything that was sold by unit rather than by weight, we had no way of knowing how much food we were actually buying - sometimes you'd get a 2lb head of cabbage, sometimes you'd get a 1/2lb head of cabbage. Again, really threw a monkey wrench into our meal planning. The box wouldn't necessarily contain everything we ordered, either. Which really. . . you get the picture.

I wouldn't have considered it a service that was even the slightest bit compelling, if not for the whole pitch about saving food from the landfill. If that turns out to be inaccurate or exaggerated, that really does kill the whole value proposition as far as I'm concerned.

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#89

Post by neaden » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

SatvikBeri wrote: post #21

Imperfect Produce's reply: https://help.imperfectproduce.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500456...

I wonder if this has to do with location as well. This reply cites a food pantry in Chicago, an area of the country that doesn't produce much produce. The farms in Illinois mostly grow corn and soybeans that feed cows. The article is in California, which is where a much more substantial portion of produce is grown.

Re: The ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

#90

Post by lacker » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

It seems quite unlikely that this random startup is actually the source of a 30% drop in business at BeetBox. Both of these companies account for a tiny percent of the produce market. BeetBox would be better off working on making their product better, rather than writing articles criticizing a startup doing something similar.