41–50 of 229 posts
I seriously wish I knew how to buy B grade food. Slightly misshapen tomatoes at a discounted price? Sign me up. I feel like I'm not the only one too.
Here in New Zealand the Chinese supermarkets seem to stock a lot of it. The prices are lower and the vegetables still taste fine, just look uglier.
> The "eat ugly fruit!" movement is classist as FUCK. You've got to have a debilitating level of ignorance to assume that if Whole Paycheck Market doesn't stock ugly fruit, it must be getting "wasted." It is possible to not know much about the agricultural industry without being "classist as fuck." There are an infinite number of things one can learn about and a finite amount of time. While the content is interesting…
I guess the author was upset that a great many people parroted the 'ugly fruits get disposed' line without doing any research. I might have mentioned it myself, because it was all over the news. I can understand why someone who works in the industry would find this frustrating - it's basically just fake news and the damage is real. A rebuttal would get nowhere near the press the sensationalist original story would ge…
One of my roommates in college was from Michoacan MX, and worked Washington state, Oregon and California's Central Valley/Watsonville growing up. At fruit stands this was standard practice.. inedible/bad fruit was tossed out but damaged fruit went into pies, salads and other products because it wouldn't sell as well, even 30-40 years ago. The problem is manufacturers and retailers optimizing a deep supply-chain for w…
And a friends mom worked as at a Potato processing factory, 6 million lbs of potato's in, 4 million lbs of potato products out. 1 million lbs of hog food out. The remainder is dirt and rocks. This factory had a machine to cut damaged bits out of french fries with air knives.
I think the majority of waste is consumer side.
"For example, there was a poster of dried shiitake mushrooms that were slightly damaged during the production process. In the Japanese market, only perfectly round shiitake were sold, but MUJI sold imperfectly shaped shiitake because they taste just as delicious. In another poster, the copy reads “The entire fish is salmon.” This is straightforward copy reminding readers that salmon is delicious head to tail, so all of it should be eaten. Even as the Japanese economy moved closer and closer toward an economic bubble, we had positive feedback from so many consumers back then who wanted to focus on the simple things in life." https://www.muji.com/us/flagship/huaihai755/archive/koike.ht...
It shows that you can package almost anything as long as you do it with conceptual integrity. If you sell discounted goods, don't try to pass it off as as good as something more expensive, because that is not credible or interesting. Emphasize that it's less expensive, and why. When I google "conceptual integrity" which is funny in a way because I'm not a developer, and also interesting because it shows that many foundational ideas are cross-disciplinary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly the point she's trying to make - they don't get wasted, only re-purposed.
Cattle feed makes that point a lot stronger than jam does.
"When produce is too far gone to sell & there's no processing market (say, melons), it often gets fed to livestock."
It's good that the less shopper-favorable produce is put to use, but I'm always curious about the somewhat analogous-to-ugly-fruits case with milk: Looking at the dairy fridge and choosing solely by expiration date. Naturally, I choose the latest to expire to maximize my options within the consumption time-frame. And I think everyone does? But do you actually care about food waste if every time you make that decision…
To ensure it doesn't go bad, I purchase in smaller quantities. I'm unlikely to buy a full gallon of milk at once.
It's good that the less shopper-favorable produce is put to use, but I'm always curious about the somewhat analogous-to-ugly-fruits case with milk: Looking at the dairy fridge and choosing solely by expiration date. Naturally, I choose the latest to expire to maximize my options within the consumption time-frame. And I think everyone does? But do you actually care about food waste if every time you make that decision…
I have never done this, and I gently suggest you stop. Do you really need those extra few days of milk expiration? If the milk with the soonest expiration date was the only one available, would you buy it or just walk out without milk? A good rule to avoid tragedy of the commons situations is to think “what if everyone did as I do?”. This is a pretty classic example here.
For other items I reach in and take items from behind the first row for similar reasons since the retailer may have put returned items (which might be slightly spoiled or damaged) up front. This is also the reason I never take the last item of anything.
So there's more too it than simple expiration dates. Retailer subterfuge is also a factor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly the point she's trying to make - they don't get wasted, only re-purposed.
Cattle feed makes that point a lot stronger than jam does.
It's good that the less shopper-favorable produce is put to use, but I'm always curious about the somewhat analogous-to-ugly-fruits case with milk: Looking at the dairy fridge and choosing solely by expiration date. Naturally, I choose the latest to expire to maximize my options within the consumption time-frame. And I think everyone does? But do you actually care about food waste if every time you make that decision…