Earlier quoted context omitted.
Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…
> an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. Citation needed. I don't believe this is actually true. The food industry is much smarter than you think.
Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
431–440 of 488 posts
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always had an issue with the "people should buy ugly food" argument. It strikes me as being somewhat elitist, and I have my doubts that the people making this argument actually follow through themselves and pick the ugly food at the supermarket, or really know if actually makes any difference. I feel like I am doing the right thing by buying fruit and vegetables instead of processed food. Do I now need to make f…
My local store sells 3Kg of potentially bruised apples for the price of 1Kg non-bruised. I often buy the bruised ones and cut off the bruised parts before eating. But I make this choice because while I do see a lower value in bruised apples, I don't see the value lower by a factor of 3. I usually cut off just 10-20% of the apple. If I paid full price for a bruised product I'm right to feel taken advantage of.
but that is a very different situation than paying the same price and getting bruised apples where you have to cut off 10-20%.
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#433I would happily purchase all non-produce and non-meat items online. The problem is that produce and meats are not produced with a consistent quality. A steak that expires tomorrow and an apple with a bruise on it are both commonly found in grocery stores and less valuable than the price would indicate. Normally these would just be left on the shelves to expire. Your strawberries may be nice and firm or they could be…
> I would happily purchase all non-produce and non-meat items online.
I've only ordered heavy packaged bulk items - cases of poland spring, snapple, coke, etc. I just can't bring myself to order perishables ( meats, fruits, veg, etc ) and packaged items that can be crushed like potato chips.
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#434It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…
I would hope that grocery stores become warehouses and the only people allowed in are delivery. You could redesign the entire stores to optimize for this which could reduce the likeliness of damaged goods. Amazon would be in a good position to do this (the Whole Foods near me already has part of it set aside for something like this).
Where online shopping reaches sufficient scale, that happens:
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…
> heard someone refuse to buy eggs because they farmer got them from her own chickens OK, I'll bite- where else could a farmer get [chicken] eggs from besides their own chickens?
From an egg factory or an egg tree. :)
I think OP meant, that there are people that need a certain level of reality distortion to consider a thing to be proper. If it came out of a chicken just recently it's disgusting, but packaged and sorted with a stamp is how it should be for those people. Basically a silly brain fart, that goes with a civilization, where thanks to a proper label we can divorce ourselves from animalistic and disgusting bounds of reality.
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#436It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…
> Now you have to consider the automatic substitution of equivalent items when something is out of stock
or, as my local store handles it, simply not getting an item that is out of stock that I would be ok with a substitution.
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…
> an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. Citation needed. I don't believe this is actually true. The food industry is much smarter than you think.
"Around 25 per cent of edible fresh produce is thrown away due to visual imperfection or cosmetic damage every year in Australia. According to a 2013 study from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO),"
https://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2014/12/10/woolworths-launche...
Original source is somewhere in there - sorry for the laziness.
Even without the citation I believe this and take it at face value. I'm not sure what would make you not believe it? Have you never passed over something based purely on looks or noticed someone else do the same? My kids instinctively do this when they eat fruit; even my 2 year old does it and they've never been told to!
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#438It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…
Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…
> it's your preference, not something that's objectively better
well, is that not a valid reason to want to pick out produce myself? How do I know the store working will have the same preference as me? What if I prefer my fruit to be under-ripe, and the store worker thinks I prefer over-ripe fruti?
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
This car has dents but those don't matter. Full price for you. Car still gets you from a to b just fine. This jacket has some holes and few stains but it will still keep you warm.
I know this isn't the point you're making, but the right dent patterns can increase fuel efficiency and make cars more desirable to some buyers.
Ok, now I need to know about these dent connoisseurs who measure their impact on fuel efficiency.
Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online
#440Our household does all our grocery shopping online, and I'm pretty convinced people wouldn't rather visit a store. Rather, the online grocery shopping experience is broken.
Online grocery shopping mimics other online shopping UX, and that simply isn't how people shop in grocery stores. Grocery shopping is a communal thing. Kids ask to add things to the cart (or just toss it in). There's a lot of aisle browsing. You talk to the butcher to find out what's good. Right now, you buy meat online the same way you buy a vacuum. No wonder people would rather go to the store.
In our home, there's no way for me to browse the store without borrowing my wife's login, and browsing the store kinda sucks. Instacart is notoriously bad, and there are way better services out there (Good Eggs and Thrive are probably the best), but there's still usually one or two things wrong with every delivery. Having to talk to customer service every week gets exhausting.
Whoever cracks grocery UX will win.