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ANY TAKERS FOR blemished apples, misshapen carrots and overly bent cucumbers?
Some European retailers are entering the market of ugly fruits and vegetables, positioning themselves as crusaders against food waste.
This week Edeka of Germany started selling the flawed items in some of its stores across the country, as part of a four-week pilot project.
Normally the crooked veggies would end up thrown away or as animal feed, because consumers “buy with their eyes too, and have gotten used to certain norms” of shape and colour, said Gernot Kasel, a spokesman for Germany’s number one retailer by market share.
Branded “nobody is perfect”, the ill-proportioned apples, potatoes and carrot sell cheaper than their “normal” counterparts.
Swiss market-leader Coop entered similar new ground in August with a range called “Unique”, on offer in about a third of its stores.
After blemished apricots and freckled cauliflowers, these days three-legged carrots are vying for buyers’ favours, said Coop spokeswoman Nadja Ruch.
They are priced about 60 per cent cheaper than “first-class” carrots, she said.
“There would be scope for selling many more of these products, as demand has certainly exceeded our hopes”, said Ruch. But there is simply no more supply of these “moods of nature”, as Coop likes to refer to them.
German retailer Rewe launched its own “Wunderling” range last week in its Austrian stores. The name is a cross between the words ‘anomaly’ and ‘miracle’.
Ugly specimens
British retail giant Sainsbury’s had paved the way last year. Adverse weather conditions translated into a dramatic drop in the country’s fruit and vegetables production, and a high rate of misshapen and damaged goods.
Sainsbury’s nevertheless committed to buying all the output, including ugly specimens. They found their way onto the shelves or as ingredients in readymade meals or pastries.
For retailer Rewe entering that market “isn’t a decision based on economic considerations”, the company said.
It sees the project, which will be extended to other markets if the Austrian experiment is a success, as “a concrete step against the food waste culture”.
Food waste
According to recent figures by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, over a billion tons of food is thrown away each year, costing the world about 750 billion dollars.
Environmental and anti-poverty groups have long highlighted the problem, and 2014 has been labelled the “European Year against Food Waste” by the European Union.
With their ugly fruit and veg action, Edeka, Coop and the others have clearly embraced a trend.
The products “are optimal in quality and taste”, says Rewe.
In many markets, quality, taste and origin are increasingly important in purchase decisions. That’s the case in Germany for instance, where taste ranks as number one buying criteria for food, ahead of price, according to a study by Ipsos institute.
From a producers’ perspective, however, getting rid of unsightly products is a concern “of secondary importance”, said Jochen Winkhoff, who is in charge of vegetables at Germany’s farmers’ association Bauernverband.
Abandoned EU norms
Nonetheless, growers welcome the new market for their flawed pieces of fruit and vegetable, especially if the arrival of strange-looking potatoes and courgettes on supermarkets shelves “raises real questions about nature” for the consumers.
But farmers still want to hold on to strict norms in their dealings with retailers.
“They make total sense”, said Winkhoff, “for instance when setting prices”.
“Nowadays every deal is done on the phone or over the internet, and the parties have to be sure they talk about the same thing”, he added.
A number of EU norms, notably the much-mocked cucumber-curve norm, were abandoned in 2008.
The overwhelming majority of professionals still apply norms drawn up by United Nations body Unece.
These specify for instance that brown stains on a apricot shouldn’t exceed 15 per cent of its surface. And a courgette has to be at least 7 centimetres long, as well as “free of cavities and splits”.
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I could say the alphabet backwards when I was 19
there was no support for me in school, i was reading at a 14 year old level and doing calculus by the time i was 7, i was reading dinosaurs latin names at 3,there were no resources in the 70′s and early 80′s when i went to school so i had to endure mind numbing boredom for 6-7 hours a day for 11 years, there was nothing the teachers could do, it put me off academia for ever, i just couldnt wait to get out of there
How about a case of a gifted young person whose financially challenged parents were repeatedly told their child had a “great future ahead” – which was interpreted by the parents as a great big dollar sign. The child was then told when they grew up they could “help” Mammy and Daddy which of course was correctly interpreted by the said child, who went off on a self destructive collision course to sabotage their own future as best possible, eventually culminating in a 6 month disappearance at the age of 28 leaving plenty of unpaid debts. A cautionary tale, but a lesson that parents should not have their child’s future framed in terms of how much their potential earnings are.
i should also mention my own laziness there and not put all the blame on others…
I could do my 7 times tables in 6.9 seconds when I was eight, now it takes me 6.9 days………
It would have been better to talk to the kids themselves than an educator who just speaks for them, no?
Of course any child’s talents should be supported but it is better to let children follow their passions. In terms of education problems (as being a genius isn’t a ‘problem’ per se), I’d be more worried about falling standards in schools and about kids who go to uni and can’t spell properly, can’t formulate an argument and will only do something if it is “on the exam”… because that’s how they’ve been conditioned by the Leaving Cert. Doling out A’s and B’s just seems to enhance ‘entitlement’ culture that flourished during the Celtic Tiger debacle…
Try being a gifted kid growing up in a working class Catholic family, educated at a Catholic state school where any deviation from the norm made you a potential delinquent or a target for bullying. There are gifted alcoholics propping up bars in towns and villages all over this country, those who managed to avoid being labelled and institutionalised as many gifted adults were and still are I suspect.
there probably are gifted alcoholics propping up bars everywhere…..but they have no one to blame but themselves….
“So, here, they can make friends and talk about whatever they want – comics, girls, cars, sports, whatever – just like any other group of kids.”
Girls?
How very inclusive of all bright kids.
CTYI doesn’t accomplish a lot of its stated aims. Back in my day, a lot of the people who went there were hippie-stoner types. At least they had more then enough brain cells to murder with weed fumes…
Could easily be confused with Asperger Syndrome based on the behaviours these gifted children exhibit.
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