Buy Ugly Produce, Cut Food Waste

Fickle produce marketers and shoppers in North America would do well to take a page from French supermarket chain Intermarché, which recently started a campaign to put farmers’ most “inglorious” produce in the spotlight—at a significant discount to shoppers.

The plan highlights food waste by showing consumers that produce need not be perfectly shaped, symmetrical or unblemished to be delicious or nutritious. The idea of selling homely produce that formerly would have been trashed, fed to livestock or left to rot in the fields because of poor marketability, has also sunk roots in Austrian and U.K. markets. Discounted by up to 30%, the quirky darlings are marketed with a good dose of humor and, at least in France, they reportedly sell out before their perfect, more expensive counterparts.