Food waste is a large problem in the U.S. One reason for this is that produce that isn’t pretty doesn’t make it to supermarket shelves. A west-coast based grocery company brings fresh produce that doesn’t meet retail standards directly from local farms to consumers.
Imperfect Produce’s content manager Reilly Brock expects the business model to work well in the Willamette Valley because so much food is being grown and people are hungry for ways to reduce waste. He says the company’s founders began to take interest in food waste in their college cafeteria.
“Once they began to ask follow-up questions,” Brock said, “they learned that there was in fact a lot more food that was never even making it off the farm that wasn’t ending up in restaurants, in grocery stores, in cafeterias. Often for very superficial reasons: how the stuff looked, sizing, blemishes, scarring.”
Imperfect Produce will begin offering its online services in Eugene, Corvallis and Albany on Monday.
Copyright KLCC, 2019.