The Problem…
Up to 25% of apples, 20% of onions and 13% of potatoes grown in the UK get rejected before they even leave the farm, simply for not looking right. Not because they taste different or because they’re unsafe. Just because they look a little odd. The produce that doesn’t make the cut often ends up ploughed back into fields, sent to landfill, or fed into anaerobic digestion. Wasted food breaks down and produces methane, warming the planet.
So what can we do?
Eat wonky! Most supermarkets now sell wonky or “perfectly imperfect” ranges, usually cheaper than the standard lines. Buying these instead of picking the perfectly round apple or the dead straight carrot sends a signal back through the supply chain that shape doesn’t matter.
It won’t fix the whole food waste problem on its own. But it’s one small and fun choice at the till that adds up, and it usually saves you money too.
Go to the supermarket, find the weirdest shaped vegetable that you can!
Even better than this, OddBox is a UK subscription service that delivers “wonky” fruit and veg, the misshapen, oversized or surplus produce that supermarkets usually reject. Founded in London in 2016 by Emilie Vanpoperinghe and Deepak Ravindran, it buys this produce direct from over 110 UK and international growers at a fair price and passes the discount on to customers.
Their mission is simple: fight food waste by proving odd looking fruit and veg tastes just as good as the “perfect” stuff on supermarket shelves. Alongside the veg boxes, Oddbox now runs The Market, offering rescued food and plastic free refillables too.
Click the box to check out OddBox!
