Ugly Produce Delivered To Your Door, Saved From Waste

CALIFORNIA - A two-headed mushroom? A lemon with a butt-crack? Both are luscious pieces of produce, but supermarkets charging premium prices won't touch them. It used to be that ugly produce went to waste - but a California company is disrupting that cycle. Meet: Imperfect Produce.

The company sources produce directly from farmers, putting extra money into their pockets and keeping produce from going to waste. In turn, it delivers the produce directly to people's doorsteps, saving time and effort.

Customers are in control of what's in their boxes. They can choose regular or organic. Small to extra large. Fruit only, veggies only or mixed. And while each box has a standard selection each week, customers may customize their deliveries. Despise kale? Nix it. Can't get enough meyer lemons? Bump up your allotment.

"It all comes back to feeding people," said Riley Brock, a manager at Imperfect Produce. He gets excited when families are excited about eating fresh produce.

Brock says that over six billion pounds of fresh produce goes to waste in this country each year, despite the efforts of farmers who donate generously to Food Banks.

But customers willing to accept produce that's too small, blemished or has a butt-crack are reaping the benefits of Imperfect Produce. To date, the company has "recovered almost 3,000,000 pounds of food," according to Brock.

A search of #ImperfectProduce on Twitter finds plenty of satisfied customers.

Currently the company delivers food in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles area. However, a look at current job postings shows positions in Portland, Oregon, including for Community Outreach Associate. Hmmm.

And the prices? Expect to pay $11 for 7-9 pounds of regular produce, and over $40 for an extra large box of organic. Do you juice? Who cares if your fruit has a mutant knob growing out of the top? See for yourself.

-Image via Fresco

Also See:

>>Kendall Jenner's Condo; Dean Martin's Former Beverly Hills Home; A Mountain Retreat: California Wow Houses