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Photo: Getty Images/Nataliya Kushnir
Researchers at Santa Clara University recently published some bleak data about farming andfood wastein California, where much of our country’s produce is grown. Across 34 farms in the central and northern part of the state, more than a third of perfectly good crops were left to rot, often due to cosmetic imperfections. In romaine heart fields, where workers discard the outer leaves to get to the plants' more attractive centers, more lettuce was left than taken. On one farm, for every acre of land more than 60,000 pounds of romaine were abandoned.
For years, data about farm-level food waste have been based on the growers' estimates. Yet this study, among the first to send researchers into fields, found that the amount of tossed produce was more than 2.5 times greater than the farmers' best guesses. All of this, of course, has serious environmental impacts. For example, the amount of water used to grow food that’s never eaten each year in the U.S. is equal to the total used in California, Texas and Ohio combined, according to estimates from the food-waste prevention groupReFED.
Christine Moseley witnessed a romaine harvest back in 2015 and was horrified. But she also saw opportunity. Moseley had recently left her job as head of strategic projects and business development for a juice bar chain. She thought: A company like that could be buying and juicing the unwanted leaves, instead of the more expensive, “prettier” hearts. The end product— green juice—would look and taste the same. “But one company can’t really provide enough demand to change the whole system,” says Moseley. A better solution, she realized, would connect lots of buyers with lots of farms. She got to work on a business plan.
Other consumer-facing companies, like Misfits Market, have since jumped on the ugly-produce bandwagon too. And while critics have questioned the motives of these businesses, arguing that “rescuing” produce is monetization masked as environmentalism some cases diverts fruits and vegetables from food banks, Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFED, has a more positive perspective. “There is so much imperfect produce out there at this point that it’s not an either-or,” she says of the flak about food-pantry donations. “In my opinion, these startups are all demonstrating that there is a higher tolerance in the marketplace for off-spec produce than the grocery stores have really given consumers credit for.”
“It’s been a win-win-win,” Moseley says. “We’ve been able to help out more people in a really important time of need, using our technology, resources and expertise to prevent food waste and help growers at the same time.”
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