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Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

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Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#451

Post by eatYourFood »

avar wrote: post #446
eatYourFood wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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'…

What makes me not believe it is that I read the study you're indirectly quoting[1]. I can't see how the articles you & the sibling comment could be written by a journalist with any other agenda than to deliberately misinform. The 25% number is not 25% of food produced, but 25% of the waste in the supply chain being on the consumer side. Nowhere that I can see in the 2013 study cited does the FAO make the claim that "…

I have an anecdote too - I used to work for SAP and lead their FMCG practice in EMEA. We did many ERP projects for large grocery chains and we could see that a lot of their material waste was down to damaged good and expired goods. Two of the largest chains had a field in the their system to track items that had expired due to being left to rot on the shelves, the amount of fruit and veg that expired was large and it was mostly oddly shaped veg. We introduced a business process where the suppliers could only send produce that met a certain 'grade', this radically changed the amount of wastage on the store side but increased the wastage on the supply side.

Programmes like 'the odd bunch' where produce that looks funny is sold cheaper has gone some way to addressing the issue for certain grocery chains.

I don't believe there are any public studies on individual store wastage over this issue.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#452

Post by eatYourFood »

thayne wrote: post #438
kerkeslager wrote: post #14

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…

> 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?

One could argue that those preferences make the world a worst place. If we just accepted the first carrot we see rather than overlooking the crooked ones, there would be less waste.

We are so picky and so fussy that extra waste and energy is expended just to make fussy people happy.

I like to get what I want too but I can't help think that if we were all a little more relaxed in this area that the world might be a better place.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#453

Post by eatYourFood »

willcipriano wrote: post #144
the_jeremy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's at least one company trying to do this - Misfit Markets sells boxes of ugly produce delivered to your door, and they claim to be cheaper than supermarket prices as an ugliness discount. (Disclaimer: I've never used them, a relative works for them)

My wife bought into one of these services, the $25 box we received contained about 10 - 15 dollars worth of produce from my local store but at a lower quality. It was also random and often contained undesirable items in large quantities (who needs 12 lemons for the week?, What am I supposed to do with 3 fingerling potatoes?). I used to work in food service and it was pretty obvious to me that they were sourcing items…

The 25 vs 15 dollars issue means their business sucks unless they have a value add on top?

If you were getting 15 lemons per week, maybe contract the vendor and try to address the issue?

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#454

Post by sacado2 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #14
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It'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…

Just sell ugly food cheaper and people will start to buy it. In fact I wonder if there is not a huge market for someone who would say "No need to choose anymore: with 'ugly foods', you can save money and the planet"

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#455

Post by mortehu »

ClikeX wrote: post #423
lorthemar wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a case of buying 'ugly food' or bruised apples. When I order online, I get potatoes that are sprouting, onions that have gone soft, meat with excessive fat or skin, and goods that are close to their expiry date. I get that, these are sold in order to avoid waste, but it should be my choice to pick them up. When I'm ordering online, I don't want to pay for poisonous potatoes or milk that will go bad in 2…

This is odd. In the Netherlands I get the oposite. Most of the stuff in the physical store is always closer to expiration than when I order it from the same store. This is because they stock the delivery cars directly from the warehouse. Which is always fresher than what they have in front.

Several of the US delivery services are just people shopping in your behalf and driving the food to you in their own car. For example Instacart works this way.

We had to experiment a bit to find out which store doesn't stock too much bad produce. After we found that out (the answer was Costco) this problem went away.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#456

Post by fmajid »

kerkeslager wrote: post #14
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It'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…

That’s a myth. Most ugly produce is sold to food processors:

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/26/18240399/food-waste-...

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#457

Post by [deleted] »

joeyjojo wrote: post #370
crazygringo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. Playing double-devil's advocate: 1) Most people have no problem buying ugly food. Much of the standardization of produce comes from packaging and packing requirements. Non-standard produce is still consumed in other forms: juice, frozen, soup, etc. 2) The vast majority of food waste comes from unsold res…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#458

Post by tonyarkles »

lorthemar wrote: post #422
kerkeslager wrote: post #14

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…

It's not just a case of buying 'ugly food' or bruised apples. When I order online, I get potatoes that are sprouting, onions that have gone soft, meat with excessive fat or skin, and goods that are close to their expiry date. I get that, these are sold in order to avoid waste, but it should be my choice to pick them up. When I'm ordering online, I don't want to pay for poisonous potatoes or milk that will go bad in 2…

And I mean it's a bit of a meme about Millenials, but I pick out avocados based on when I plan on using them. Making guac tonight? I'm grabbing the softest-not-going-bad avocados I can. Making guac for friends (back when having friends over was a thing)? Firm is great, they'll be ripe just in time for Saturday.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#459

Post by tonyarkles »

klyrs wrote: post #97
hinkley wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also can't substitute one brand of salsa for another. That'll start fights in some circles.

Recent substitutions I've seen (where I specified "no substitutions"): Ice cream flavors: my favorite for something I'd never pick (still ate it, annoyed) Margarine instead of butter -- the heck? Won't use it. Vanilla yogurt in place of plain yogurt. Slowly eating it for breakfast, annoyed; can't use it in savory dishes which is what it's for. Juices: I can't stand sugar alcohols, and got a ton of crap full of sucral…

Hot sauce: asked for Sriracha, was told it was out of stock. Asked for store brand sriracha as the replacement, got Franks.

It's fine on eggs I suppose.

I'm obviously just one data point, but my Instacart experience was pretty mediocre. Because of how the substitutions work (and there's no live inventory), you pretty much have to be alert and ready to context switch into "grocery substitution" mode the whole time the shopper is picking your food. I don't remember what the fee was, but in the end it wasn't "I absolutely prefer to go to the store myself!" but rather "That was a painful enough experience that next time I'll just go do it myself"

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#460

Post by tallanvor »

OJFord wrote: post #73
thaeli wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shavings from baby carrot production are still used, for juice and pulp.

For the benefit of any other perplexed non-Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_carrot#%22Baby-cut%22_car...

They are certainly not limited to America. You can buy them in many countries - they're common in the stores here in Norway, for example.
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