Here’s the ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

On the Frequently Asked Questions section of its website, Imperfect Produce claims that the California Food Banks only take 150,000 pounds per year of produce from California’s farmers as a donation, implying that the rest is going to waste. But the California Association of Food Banks says it receives and redistributes 164 million pounds of fruits and veggies each year! Something smells about this strategy, and it’s not the compost.

Further gentrification of the food system

Imperfect Produce reflects a very troubling trend that is undermining local, small-scale farmers and food justice initiatives, a trend that commodifies and gentrifies food waste. The company has helped to create a market for the “waste” created by industrial agribusiness, selling it to conscious (rather than needy) buyers by branding it as a form of environmental activism. 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. Those with limited access to fresh produce are at risk of no longer accessing free, fresh produce through the food bank and their affiliate distribution channels. Small, local, and urban farmers are losing their CSAs—their lifeline to economic viability.

Supporting farms or agribusiness

Ben Simon, co-founder of Imperfect Produce, spoke about scale to  U.S. News & World Report: “[The] farmers we work with have to have enough volume for it to really make sense. We want to be able to source at least a truckload from these growers each week, so they have to be at least midsize in most cases.” Imperfect Produce is only able to make a profit by working with the larger global agribusinesses, not the picturesque small and mid-sized farms it projects in its marketing campaign. The company donates the ‘leftovers of their leftovers’ to nonprofits and the very place that surplus produce would’ve gone to in the first place, food banks. The only thing Imperfect has done is fulfill its bottom line by creating another market for agribusiness’ systemic overproduction. It’s a clever money making scheme, but it certainly doesn’t help small, local farmers or address the source of waste: overproduction by industrial farms as they produce the “perfect” produce sold in supermarkets.

A case of sour grapes?

Some may claim we have a case of sour grapes. This is capitalism at its best, they might say. While Imperfect Produce has always been a friendly bunch willing to donate its surplus, it sells a market solution disguised as activism, undermining alternative economies and social justice initiatives like those implemented by Phat Beets. The company does this by commodifying food that would go to the poor for free, while branding itself as an ethical solution to food waste. Unlike CSAs, it isn’t rooted in a community economy, but in the free market, investors, and higher income consumers. Small farmers and poor communities lose out in the process.

There is no simple answer to how we deal with food waste, but commodifying it is not the solution. The U.S. food justice movement was built on the shoulders of the Black Panthers’s Free Breakfast/Meals program and the work of the United Farm Workers that is over 50 years old, and comes straight out of North Oakland and the Central Valley of California. Following in their footsteps, our partners at organizations such as Self Help Hunger Program, Food Not Bombs, Mother Wright, Qilombo, The Village, Poor News and many others are rooted in these tried and true means of healthy food distribution for the people by the people.