Aesthetic demands limiting consumer choice
standardisation of fruit and vegetable produce sold in supermarkets
and causing obscene amounts of food waste, according to a UK
pressure group.
The UK National Trust plans to highlight this situation with the launch of a year-long competition to find the nation's ugliest vegetable.
The competition is part of the 'Food Choices' initiative, which is run in conjunction with the 'Small Steps BIG CHANGE' project.
This project aims to encourage consumers to buy locally grown produce and force supermarkets to rethink strategy on selling fruit and vegetables.
The issue of price appears to be central to the rejection of unattractive, differently sized produce. But in order to maintain the set price for fruit and vegetables, which was previously determined by season and origin, quality is often sacrificed.
"Cosmetic standards for food are completely insane, you eat it because it tastes good, not because it looks nice," said Jeanette Longfield co-ordinator of Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming.
"It's a viscous circle, because supermarkets present us with cosmetic fruit. If they suddenly start providing us with ugly fruit we won't buy it because it looks different."
However retailers may have to change their tack. On the back of such campaigns, the demand for 'real' food continues to grow, with consumers turning their attentions to the expanding organic and farm sector.
Other European countries appear less affected. The continued presence of fruit and vegetable market stalls in many European countries such as France for example means that consumers within that country are used to seeing non-perfect, fresh produce.
A Tesco spokesperson told FoodandDrinkEurope.com: "It is worth noting that a crop which falls short of a specification still has a commercial value and many other sectors outside retail play a part in how a grower utlises their crop."
"In order to categorise fruit and vegetables the EU has a classification system which we build into our specifications," they added.
Supermarkets in the UK now sell 80 per cent of the fruit and vegetables consumed by the British public compared to the 1970s when wholesale markets, which supplied greengrocers and market stalls, supplied 90 per cent of fresh produce in the UK.
