This produce used to be readily available to food banks but now that “ugly” and “imperfect” produce can turn a profit, they are less available to those in need.
So the argument is as follows: Farmers were donating food to the poor because they couldn't sell it. Imperfect Produce figured out how to sell that food, so now farmers are selling it instead of donating it. This is bad because now poor people get less food.
I don't get it. You could argue that the poor need food more than farmers need money. That same argument could be made to any business, though. Why are farmers more obligated to donate to the poor than anyone else?
That is even assuming Imperfect Foods is negatively affecting these food banks. The New Food Economy seems to think so, but Imperfect Foods disagrees.
I don't know who to believe, but I also don't think it matters. My takeaway is that the food bank model for donating to the poor is less viable now. We'll have to find a better model moving forward.
> I don't get it. You could argue that the poor need food more than farmers need money. That same argument could be made to any business, though. Why are farmers more obligated to donate to the poor than anyone else?
One of the arguments for subsidies to farmers is that they are the "feeders of people". Sounds to me like they want privileges, why not a few obligations for a change?
One question though, are there farmers out there who are not taking the famed agricultural subsidies we give out? Because if there are, (even if there are not that many such farmers), I think those guys should be able to monetize their "ugly" produce or fruit all they want. They're not being supported by tax money at all.
But yes, if we are subsidizing a farmer, we certainly have the right to oblige him to give his scraps to us so we can feed our masses. There's nothing unreasonable about that. After all, we're only talking about the little food he's able to sell only to the guys who literally only take "scraps".
If Imperfect Foods's business model works out, it sounds like farmers will see an increase in profits. I don't see why that couldn't coincide with a decrease in subsidies. In an ideal world, we could even redirect that money towards the poor - potentially making up for the impact to food banks.
I think the argument most commonly put forth is not "feeders of the people" but "national security." Proponents of the subsidies say that the ability of a nation to feed itself is a matter of national security. Although in the era of factory farms and big agra it seems like the "national security" is maybe less of a concern that during say the Eisenhower era.
>"Sounds to me like they want privileges, why not a few obligations for a change?"
Exactly, recipients of those subsidies should be obligated to contribute to food banks for the poor. I don't believe any such strings are attached today. Source: I have a American friend who has farm land as part of a second home but has never grown a single crop, he receives an annual subsidy check and has now for many years.
I think op's point is that ugly food business is based on peoples charitable instincts, while those same customers are not aware the food would not in fact be wasted. so the consumers are buying it for wrong reasons
I think its just an observation of the outcome of a real world change. People put effort into reducing food waste and the outcome is reduced food for the poor. I think the question is, was it worth it?
Imperfect produce has managed to create a market for food that was previously not able to be sold. Good for them.
Does this mean that we may have to restructure social programs as that food becomes sold rather than donated? Sure might. That's ok though.
I'd also like to clearly point out that the author misquotes their source for the amount of food donated. The California Association of Food Banks states that they have donated 164 million pounds of fruits and vegetables. That's not 164 million PER YEAR. That's 164 million since they were founded in 1995 - or 7.1 million a year. Additionally, the Imperfect produce comment saying 150,000 lbs specifically calls out "From California farmers". While the food banks numbers are simply totals (they likely purchase and redistribute, as well as take donations from out of state sources). There's probably fudging on both sides, but I find this article fairly disingenuous.
I see nothing wrong with: selling something if a paying market is found for that, instead of giving it away for free.
I do see something wrong with: creating that paying market by lying.
I suspect most of those conscientious people who think they are helping farmers and reducing food waste would not be paying for this produce if they knew that it was being taken away from poor people.
That's roughly in line with my experience using one of these services.
It really wasn't much of a money saver for us, especially after factoring the delivery fee into account. Worse, it was a terribly inconvenient service. We'd need to place our order the better part of a week before our delivery date, which really threw a monkey wrench into our weekly meal planning. And, for anything that was sold by unit rather than by weight, we had no way of knowing how much food we were actually buying - sometimes you'd get a 2lb head of cabbage, sometimes you'd get a 1/2lb head of cabbage. Again, really threw a monkey wrench into our meal planning. The box wouldn't necessarily contain everything we ordered, either. Which really. . . you get the picture.
I wouldn't have considered it a service that was even the slightest bit compelling, if not for the whole pitch about saving food from the landfill. If that turns out to be inaccurate or exaggerated, that really does kill the whole value proposition as far as I'm concerned.
> conscientious people who think they are helping farmers
But they are helping farmers, they are giving them money they otherwise would not have gotten. Why should the burden of providing food for the needy solely come out of farmers' incomes?
Most marketing is borderline deceptive. I'd venture a guess that most of IP customers are eduacted enough to know that, and are buying the service based on its more tangible benefits (ie. not to save the world)
This happened previously with "chocolate" diamonds. Those undesirable diamonds were often used in industrial applications. When jewelry stores started promoting them, the cost of "ugly" diamonds went up, making some other applications more expensive.
Also, I do a fair amount of work with a local neighborhood center that has as a part of their mission meeting the basic needs of local residents. I haven't been there during fresh produce bank they run, but I've seen pictures and been told by the management that they get some very high quality produce. Apparently the local markets aren't that great at predicting the desire for a product, so they get some pretty high quality produce from every chain in the city.
Yeah, this whole piece is from someone with an axe to grind. I get it, Beet Box was more community focused and basically a non-profit masquerading as a startup. It's natural they'd get stomped by a real startup, but in this case, the competition is literally taking trash and making people eat it. It's great! What could be wrong with that? We waste like 40% of all food made in this country.
But it's not trash. It's food that was being used. I don't think most of Imperfect Produce's customers would subscribe if they knew this food was previously being eaten by people in need. Their entire marketing and product concept is based on a lie.
The author's best arguments aren't articulated well. I will try and paraphrase.
Essentially, Imperfect Produce is buying scraps from medium to larger farms and marketing it to people that would normally buy produce from small farmers. They sell you on the concept of buying vegetables and helping the environment and farmers at the same time. They do this by claiming that the food would go to waste if you didn't buy it and they also imply through marketing materials that the food comes from quaint little ma and pa farms.
The thrust of the argument is not "boo, capitalism!", it's that it is deceptive marketing and it's hurting small farmers. Because 1) the food would not go to waste if it wasn't purchased and 2) the food they are selling does not come from small farmers but it's marketed like it does and it's marketed to the same people that would normally buy from small farmers
I think I understood the author fairly well, I just find fault in his argument.
He hasn't proved "1) the food would not go to waste if it wasn't purchased" AT ALL. He's merely implied it through incorrect facts about donations to food banks.
number 2 is likely true, but that actually make it MORE likely that the food would have gone to waste. I've worked with donation programs in my local state that harvest crops left in the field. Large farms will leave crops unharvested if the price drops below a certain point (either because of market changes or because the produce grade would be lower). They do this because it costs more to hire the labor to harvest it than the crop will bring in.
Small farms are much less likely to do this.
Finally: The author of this piece is basically just a competitor in the SAME market. Literally. You can sign up for 16 weeks of BeetBox deliveries for a mere 530 bucks (I'm being facetious if it's not entirely obvious... they're asking 35 dollars a box for self pickup - they're selling expensive freaking veggies.)
So I fail to find the argument that this is hurting donations compelling (or even factual) and I don't believe the author's motives are any more pure.
Basically - this is a hit piece against a competitor in the same market, and it should be read as such.
We have never claimed to source from small farms. We source from medium and large scale farms, where most of the 20 billion lbs of food waste happens. Rather than targeting CSA shoppers or farmers market patrons, we target shoppers who are going to supermarkets and buying “perfect” produce at a premium. We are encouraging them to think more about where they get their fruits and vegetables by offering another option so they can save money and reduce waste. We think CSAs are a great option for those that want locally-sourced produce that’s grown at a small-scale and we entirely support that choice if the option is financially available to you.
The author of this piece is basically just a competitor in the SAME market. Literally. You can sign up for 16 weeks of BeetBox for a mere 530 bucks (I'm being facetious if it's not entirely obvious... they're asking 35 dollars a box for self pickup - they're selling expensive freaking veggies.)
So I fail to find the argument that this is hurting donations compelling (or even factual) and I don't believe the author's motives are any more pure.
Basically - this is a hit piece against a competitor in the same market, and it should be read as such.
>Imperfect produce has managed to create a market for food that was previously not able to be sold. Good for them.
Like when Robin Hood was introduced to capitalism and started “robbing the hood.” Nothing like taking food from the poor and selling it to the rich, just need that good market...I know tell them they are saving the world by buying this food and otherwise it would be waste.
Think of all these “untapped” markets startups can disrupt like soup kitchens and food stamps. These morons out here giving food away when they are just one round of VC money away from creating new markets.
That’s probably because you are not an Oakland hipster who attended a liberal college }:)
Jokes aside, the article does read like a buzzword soup, and looks like a low blow from someone who is getting outcompited fair and square.
I would also like to see an analysis of the impact in consumer prices, since imperfect food is making a net loss for producers into a net gain.
If these producers are competing this should lower the prices, what could potentially reduce the need for donated food altogether (I know it’s very optimistic, but hey, a man can dream)
"Our venture, and ventures like ours, which rely on redistributing food waste, cannot succeed if people waste less food. So please waste more food."
Talk about putting the cart before the horse. I have no problem with saying, "that food isn't really waste, let's redistribute it if it's going unused." But someone's got their head turned right around if they think that a logical corollary is, "and that food should never be used, because we're redistributing it."
I think there's a way to think about this that does actually make sense...
"As long as people are only willing to buy pretty produce, then because actual produce inherently contains only a certain fraction of pretty produce, a demand for pretty produce inherently creates a surplus of ugly produce which can then be redistributed. In effect, every purchase of pretty produce hides an invisible tax which goes to buying ugly produce for the homeless. If paying customers no longer demand pretty produce, then stores will be able to only order as much produce as they need for paying customers, and the ugly-food surplus - that virtual tax on produce customers - will disappear. So, in effect, the ugly produce movement is the equivalent of advocating for a repeal of a tax on produce purchases which is used to buy produce for the poor."
And phrased that way - "do you support or wish to abolish the produce tax and the social program based on it" - it becomes a political issue which one can reasonably have opinions supporting the tax on the basis that it helps the poor. Especially as this tax and feed-the-poor social program has been created without government intervention or regulation - they're an emergent product of unforced consumer preferences, and there's no administrative overhead involved in keeping track of the taxes and organizing food purchases because it's just an automatic consequence of spending money to buy produce.
This is an interesting way to frame the issue! However, your point about there being no overhead to organize food purchases seems dubious to me. Charities have overhead costs, too. And even if a food bank were run entirely by volunteers at no monetary cost to the public, there is a social cost in terms of the time the volunteers are donating.
Furthermore, I suspect that the improper valuation of “ugly” produce leads to other sources of waste. Sure - some percentage of it makes its way to food banks. But how much of it is left to spoil or used to feed livestock?
>that food isn't really waste, let's redistribute it if it's going unused.
But this is exactly what I got from the article, that the supposed wasted food isn't being wasted. And so the consumer activism behind the appeal of these products is misplaced.
“Food waste” means, specifically, food that went unsold because a market couldn’t be found for it. Donating something rather than throwing it out is how these venture began.
> Talk about putting the cart before the horse. I have no problem with saying, "that food isn't really waste, let's redistribute it if it's going unused." But someone's got their head turned right around if they think that a logical corollary is, "and that food should never be used, because we're redistributing it."
No, I think you're the one who has it wrong. Previously, the "ugly produce" wasn't food waste because it was distributed to the needy through food banks and other social uses.
The problem is that the "imperfect produce" startup used a glitzy marketing campaign to turn that produce into a marketable commodity, redirecting it from social uses to profit-making uses, making the poor worse off to benefit some VCs and midsize-to-large agribusiness companies. To add insult to injury, the marketing tries to pass off the profit-making use as a social one.
Here's a thought experiment for you: suppose that farming technology had developed which allows every fruit and vegetable grown to be "pretty" and saleable. Would it be immoral for farmers to stop producing "ugly" produce in that world?
If so, I think your argument is with capitalism, and not any one actor.
Beyond the first paragraph which just states that their food would otherwise end up as trash, they don't actually reply to any of the claims in the parent article.
The evidence they provide is broad macro-level statistics about how much food is wasted, but not about where the food they're selling comes from.
The parent article claims specifically that they are getting their food from sources that would otherwise be going to food banks.
The fact that this "reply" repeats talking points with country-level statistics instead of directly addressing the question leaves me feeling suspicious of Imperfect Produce.
We source from medium and large scale farms where most of the 20 billion lbs of food waste happens. These farmers either let their ugly produce rot in the field, or sell it for pennies to animal feed. Happy to clear up any other misinformation that this article presents.
I wonder if this has to do with location as well. This reply cites a food pantry in Chicago, an area of the country that doesn't produce much produce. The farms in Illinois mostly grow corn and soybeans that feed cows. The article is in California, which is where a much more substantial portion of produce is grown.
There is some very disingenous sounding hand-waving going on in this article - and it appears to have been successful! Most of the commenters here seem to have come away with the idea that the problem is that Imperfect Produce is taking food that would have otherwise gone to food banks. While the article never claims thus, I think the misunderstanding is intentional on the part of the author. The key point to me is this:
> Three years later and with a 30-percent drop in customers
and
> We lost customers, a lot of customers.
With a more careful reading, one can see that the "loss" to food banks is because BeetBox is not making as much money now that they have competition with better marketing. In fact the article even says as much:
> subscriptions have fallen so much we’ve had to cut back on many of the food justice programs that our CSA proceeds had previously supported.
Sounds a lot less like Imperfect Produce is an evil monster here, and a lot more like they're just a more succesful competitor.
I used Imperfect Produce for several months and I wonder how much of it was actually 'imperfect.' Most of it was labeled 'surplus,' as the imperfection, and came in looking identical to the grocery store.
I ended up cancelling my subscription after I did the math and it was slightly more expensive than going to the grocery store, and their selection was narrow and seemed to rotate between the same items. Also almost none of it was local to my region--just like a normal grocery store supply chain.
"Imperfect Produce claims it’s saving the world by reducing food waste—and helping farmers by buying surplus 'ugly' produce that would have been thrown out. Sounds great. The reality is that this produce would have otherwise gone to food banks, to be redistributed for free."
People are complaining because a hidden subsidy (from government and other food buyers to the food banks) has been removed.
I don't like seeing groups shoehorn welfare into other areas. If you've got an income (or cash welfare) problem, fix that.
> I don't like seeing groups shoehorn welfare into other areas. If you've got an income (or cash welfare) problem, fix that.
I'd prefer a better solution, but when one isn't available (and likely not forthcoming), needs of real people outweigh my economic principles: These people need food.
It's the same in engineering: As much as we would wish otherwise, sometimes the 'right' solution isn't available and we need to deliver, so we provide an imperfect solution that works.
You aren't disagreeing. People need food, so fund a food bank. Don't create absurdly contorted markets to preserve unnecessary waste streams to be reprurposed for food banks.
It’s crazy the contortions americans go through to avoid having welfare while still trying to have welfare. But god forbid we just have actual welfare.
Been living here 4 years, still don’t get it. Prob never will.
I’m supposed to only buy expensive produce so the cheap stuff can be left for those less fortunate? Why don’t you just use some of the exorbitant taxes I pay to help the less fortunate directly? Smh
I get the sentiment but...we do have welfare programs. If a food source once available is becoming scarce, then obviously they will need to be revamped where appropriate.
> I don't like seeing groups shoehorn welfare into other areas. If you've got an income (or cash welfare) problem, fix that.
And then the problem never gets fixed. You argue against this practice with the reasoning that the "income problem" should be solved directly. Simultaneously, others argue (loudly) against solving the "income problem" directly with the reasoning that practices like this are the answer. At every point, there's an alternative that can be used as an excuse to totally avoid solving or ameliorating the problem.
Right, I felt like I was going crazy, because I was sure I had read this line before:
>Soon, Imperfect’s single-use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay.
but I couldn't find the linked URL elsewhere on HN! It's almost a verbatim quote from the original article:
>Soon, their single use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay.
The whole paragraphs are nearly identical:
>Within months of its arrival in the Bay Area, Imperfect Produce fliers were showing up on our car windows, their outreach coordinators were pitching at community meetings, their Facebook advertisements popped up daily in our feeds, and they were edging into community centers we had operated at for years. Their marketing blitz paid off. Soon, their single use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay. We lost customers, a lot of customers.
>Within months of its arrival in the Bay Area, Imperfect Produce fliers were showing up on our car windows, its outreach coordinators were pitching at community meetings, its Facebook advertisements popped up daily in our feeds, and it was edging into community centers we had operated at for years. The marketing blitz paid off. Soon, Imperfect’s single-use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay. We lost customers, a lot of customers.
Readit News
So the argument is as follows: Farmers were donating food to the poor because they couldn't sell it. Imperfect Produce figured out how to sell that food, so now farmers are selling it instead of donating it. This is bad because now poor people get less food.
I don't get it. You could argue that the poor need food more than farmers need money. That same argument could be made to any business, though. Why are farmers more obligated to donate to the poor than anyone else?
That is even assuming Imperfect Foods is negatively affecting these food banks. The New Food Economy seems to think so, but Imperfect Foods disagrees.
https://help.imperfectproduce.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500456...
I don't know who to believe, but I also don't think it matters. My takeaway is that the food bank model for donating to the poor is less viable now. We'll have to find a better model moving forward.
One of the arguments for subsidies to farmers is that they are the "feeders of people". Sounds to me like they want privileges, why not a few obligations for a change?
One question though, are there farmers out there who are not taking the famed agricultural subsidies we give out? Because if there are, (even if there are not that many such farmers), I think those guys should be able to monetize their "ugly" produce or fruit all they want. They're not being supported by tax money at all.
But yes, if we are subsidizing a farmer, we certainly have the right to oblige him to give his scraps to us so we can feed our masses. There's nothing unreasonable about that. After all, we're only talking about the little food he's able to sell only to the guys who literally only take "scraps".
Exactly, recipients of those subsidies should be obligated to contribute to food banks for the poor. I don't believe any such strings are attached today. Source: I have a American friend who has farm land as part of a second home but has never grown a single crop, he receives an annual subsidy check and has now for many years.
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Imperfect produce has managed to create a market for food that was previously not able to be sold. Good for them.
Does this mean that we may have to restructure social programs as that food becomes sold rather than donated? Sure might. That's ok though.
I'd also like to clearly point out that the author misquotes their source for the amount of food donated. The California Association of Food Banks states that they have donated 164 million pounds of fruits and vegetables. That's not 164 million PER YEAR. That's 164 million since they were founded in 1995 - or 7.1 million a year. Additionally, the Imperfect produce comment saying 150,000 lbs specifically calls out "From California farmers". While the food banks numbers are simply totals (they likely purchase and redistribute, as well as take donations from out of state sources). There's probably fudging on both sides, but I find this article fairly disingenuous.
I do see something wrong with: creating that paying market by lying.
I suspect most of those conscientious people who think they are helping farmers and reducing food waste would not be paying for this produce if they knew that it was being taken away from poor people.
It really wasn't much of a money saver for us, especially after factoring the delivery fee into account. Worse, it was a terribly inconvenient service. We'd need to place our order the better part of a week before our delivery date, which really threw a monkey wrench into our weekly meal planning. And, for anything that was sold by unit rather than by weight, we had no way of knowing how much food we were actually buying - sometimes you'd get a 2lb head of cabbage, sometimes you'd get a 1/2lb head of cabbage. Again, really threw a monkey wrench into our meal planning. The box wouldn't necessarily contain everything we ordered, either. Which really. . . you get the picture.
I wouldn't have considered it a service that was even the slightest bit compelling, if not for the whole pitch about saving food from the landfill. If that turns out to be inaccurate or exaggerated, that really does kill the whole value proposition as far as I'm concerned.
But they are helping farmers, they are giving them money they otherwise would not have gotten. Why should the burden of providing food for the needy solely come out of farmers' incomes?
Also, I do a fair amount of work with a local neighborhood center that has as a part of their mission meeting the basic needs of local residents. I haven't been there during fresh produce bank they run, but I've seen pictures and been told by the management that they get some very high quality produce. Apparently the local markets aren't that great at predicting the desire for a product, so they get some pretty high quality produce from every chain in the city.
> Does this mean that we may have to restructure social programs as that food becomes sold rather than donated? Sure might.
Except the former is already happening, while it's highly uncertain whether or not the latter will happen.
Essentially, Imperfect Produce is buying scraps from medium to larger farms and marketing it to people that would normally buy produce from small farmers. They sell you on the concept of buying vegetables and helping the environment and farmers at the same time. They do this by claiming that the food would go to waste if you didn't buy it and they also imply through marketing materials that the food comes from quaint little ma and pa farms.
The thrust of the argument is not "boo, capitalism!", it's that it is deceptive marketing and it's hurting small farmers. Because 1) the food would not go to waste if it wasn't purchased and 2) the food they are selling does not come from small farmers but it's marketed like it does and it's marketed to the same people that would normally buy from small farmers
He hasn't proved "1) the food would not go to waste if it wasn't purchased" AT ALL. He's merely implied it through incorrect facts about donations to food banks.
number 2 is likely true, but that actually make it MORE likely that the food would have gone to waste. I've worked with donation programs in my local state that harvest crops left in the field. Large farms will leave crops unharvested if the price drops below a certain point (either because of market changes or because the produce grade would be lower). They do this because it costs more to hire the labor to harvest it than the crop will bring in.
Small farms are much less likely to do this.
Finally: The author of this piece is basically just a competitor in the SAME market. Literally. You can sign up for 16 weeks of BeetBox deliveries for a mere 530 bucks (I'm being facetious if it's not entirely obvious... they're asking 35 dollars a box for self pickup - they're selling expensive freaking veggies.)
So I fail to find the argument that this is hurting donations compelling (or even factual) and I don't believe the author's motives are any more pure.
Basically - this is a hit piece against a competitor in the same market, and it should be read as such.
Said the man who never relied on donated food to survive.
Still, I know I shouldn't be surprised to see this sort of comment on the mother of all capitalist congregations that is HN.
---
The author of this piece is basically just a competitor in the SAME market. Literally. You can sign up for 16 weeks of BeetBox for a mere 530 bucks (I'm being facetious if it's not entirely obvious... they're asking 35 dollars a box for self pickup - they're selling expensive freaking veggies.)
So I fail to find the argument that this is hurting donations compelling (or even factual) and I don't believe the author's motives are any more pure.
Basically - this is a hit piece against a competitor in the same market, and it should be read as such.
Like when Robin Hood was introduced to capitalism and started “robbing the hood.” Nothing like taking food from the poor and selling it to the rich, just need that good market...I know tell them they are saving the world by buying this food and otherwise it would be waste.
Think of all these “untapped” markets startups can disrupt like soup kitchens and food stamps. These morons out here giving food away when they are just one round of VC money away from creating new markets.
Jokes aside, the article does read like a buzzword soup, and looks like a low blow from someone who is getting outcompited fair and square.
I would also like to see an analysis of the impact in consumer prices, since imperfect food is making a net loss for producers into a net gain.
If these producers are competing this should lower the prices, what could potentially reduce the need for donated food altogether (I know it’s very optimistic, but hey, a man can dream)
Talk about putting the cart before the horse. I have no problem with saying, "that food isn't really waste, let's redistribute it if it's going unused." But someone's got their head turned right around if they think that a logical corollary is, "and that food should never be used, because we're redistributing it."
"As long as people are only willing to buy pretty produce, then because actual produce inherently contains only a certain fraction of pretty produce, a demand for pretty produce inherently creates a surplus of ugly produce which can then be redistributed. In effect, every purchase of pretty produce hides an invisible tax which goes to buying ugly produce for the homeless. If paying customers no longer demand pretty produce, then stores will be able to only order as much produce as they need for paying customers, and the ugly-food surplus - that virtual tax on produce customers - will disappear. So, in effect, the ugly produce movement is the equivalent of advocating for a repeal of a tax on produce purchases which is used to buy produce for the poor."
And phrased that way - "do you support or wish to abolish the produce tax and the social program based on it" - it becomes a political issue which one can reasonably have opinions supporting the tax on the basis that it helps the poor. Especially as this tax and feed-the-poor social program has been created without government intervention or regulation - they're an emergent product of unforced consumer preferences, and there's no administrative overhead involved in keeping track of the taxes and organizing food purchases because it's just an automatic consequence of spending money to buy produce.
Furthermore, I suspect that the improper valuation of “ugly” produce leads to other sources of waste. Sure - some percentage of it makes its way to food banks. But how much of it is left to spoil or used to feed livestock?
But this is exactly what I got from the article, that the supposed wasted food isn't being wasted. And so the consumer activism behind the appeal of these products is misplaced.
If you can find a market for it, its not waste.
No, I think you're the one who has it wrong. Previously, the "ugly produce" wasn't food waste because it was distributed to the needy through food banks and other social uses.
The problem is that the "imperfect produce" startup used a glitzy marketing campaign to turn that produce into a marketable commodity, redirecting it from social uses to profit-making uses, making the poor worse off to benefit some VCs and midsize-to-large agribusiness companies. To add insult to injury, the marketing tries to pass off the profit-making use as a social one.
If so, I think your argument is with capitalism, and not any one actor.
If not, what's the difference here?
The evidence they provide is broad macro-level statistics about how much food is wasted, but not about where the food they're selling comes from.
The parent article claims specifically that they are getting their food from sources that would otherwise be going to food banks.
The fact that this "reply" repeats talking points with country-level statistics instead of directly addressing the question leaves me feeling suspicious of Imperfect Produce.
> Three years later and with a 30-percent drop in customers
and
> We lost customers, a lot of customers.
With a more careful reading, one can see that the "loss" to food banks is because BeetBox is not making as much money now that they have competition with better marketing. In fact the article even says as much:
> subscriptions have fallen so much we’ve had to cut back on many of the food justice programs that our CSA proceeds had previously supported.
Sounds a lot less like Imperfect Produce is an evil monster here, and a lot more like they're just a more succesful competitor.
I ended up cancelling my subscription after I did the math and it was slightly more expensive than going to the grocery store, and their selection was narrow and seemed to rotate between the same items. Also almost none of it was local to my region--just like a normal grocery store supply chain.
People are complaining because a hidden subsidy (from government and other food buyers to the food banks) has been removed.
I don't like seeing groups shoehorn welfare into other areas. If you've got an income (or cash welfare) problem, fix that.
I'd prefer a better solution, but when one isn't available (and likely not forthcoming), needs of real people outweigh my economic principles: These people need food.
It's the same in engineering: As much as we would wish otherwise, sometimes the 'right' solution isn't available and we need to deliver, so we provide an imperfect solution that works.
Been living here 4 years, still don’t get it. Prob never will.
I’m supposed to only buy expensive produce so the cheap stuff can be left for those less fortunate? Why don’t you just use some of the exorbitant taxes I pay to help the less fortunate directly? Smh
Dead Comment
It wasn't a problem before.
And then the problem never gets fixed. You argue against this practice with the reasoning that the "income problem" should be solved directly. Simultaneously, others argue (loudly) against solving the "income problem" directly with the reasoning that practices like this are the answer. At every point, there's an alternative that can be used as an excuse to totally avoid solving or ameliorating the problem.
>Soon, Imperfect’s single-use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay.
but I couldn't find the linked URL elsewhere on HN! It's almost a verbatim quote from the original article:
>Soon, their single use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay.
The whole paragraphs are nearly identical:
>Within months of its arrival in the Bay Area, Imperfect Produce fliers were showing up on our car windows, their outreach coordinators were pitching at community meetings, their Facebook advertisements popped up daily in our feeds, and they were edging into community centers we had operated at for years. Their marketing blitz paid off. Soon, their single use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay. We lost customers, a lot of customers.
>Within months of its arrival in the Bay Area, Imperfect Produce fliers were showing up on our car windows, its outreach coordinators were pitching at community meetings, its Facebook advertisements popped up daily in our feeds, and it was edging into community centers we had operated at for years. The marketing blitz paid off. Soon, Imperfect’s single-use cardboard boxes began lining the streets on recycling and garbage days in the East Bay. We lost customers, a lot of customers.