About Us

We're a social enterprise that is purpose driven to save "ugly" food from going to waste. We were horrified to learn that 45% of the fresh fruits and veggies being grown in New Zealand are rejected as imperfect and will never leave the farm they are grown on. Instead of finding their way to hungry tummies, all this amazing produce instead gets composted or, even worse, sent to landfill. We knew there had to be something we could do - it was crazy to us that all this perfectly edible and healthy food was being rejected for trivial reasons such as being misshapen, too big, too small, too perfectly ripe, or not perfect enough for the mainstream market.  And that was how Perfectly Imperfect was born, when we developed this new way to connect our country's "ugly" produce with consumers. 

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We believe that"there's no such thing as perfect food, only TASTY food." Our goal is save the 122,000 tonnes of food that is going to waste by providing a new purpose for this produce. We encourage people to look beyond perfect and discover produce with personality within our mystery boxes. Not just that, but we are working on a number of community initiatives that help to redirect this food to people who need it most. 

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What People Say About Us

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• Winner of Community Collaboration from the 2021 Zero Waste Award by Auckland Council and EcoMatters.

• Finalist of The 2021 People's Choice Food Hero Award

• Semi-finalist of The New Zealander of the Year 2022, in the category of The Community of the Year.

• Our Founder Wendy Zhou was named one of the Kiwibank 100 Local  Hero Medalists 2022, from The New Zealander of the Year Award.

• Wendy was part of the KAITAKI Collective 2021 by Eat New Zealand, which helps to share Aotearoa New Zealand's inspiring food stories.

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Why choose an Imperfect Mystery Fruits and Vegetable Box?

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• It's a lifestyle choice - 'Healthy Zero Waste lifestyle'

• It's a faith - 'Faith in growers that all food that they are growing is delicious and nutritious, even they're not always pretty'

• It's a gratitude - 'Appreciation towards the hard work of our growers, and grateful that we have amazing water and highly nutritious soil in New Zealand.'

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'Imperfect = I'm Perfect'

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Our Perfectly Imperfect Community aims to build a fair trade market for local growers and New Zealand families .It's a win win situation - this "ugly" produce is getting eaten up, and we are providing an affordable solution for putting nutritious produce on Kiwi tables. It also helps our producers to avoid waste, avoid financial struggles, and to innovate to come up with new ways to avoid food waste.

 

In a sector where the traditional standards are impossibly high, our only standard is 'Imperfect = I'm Perfect'. We accept any produce no matter what its quirks - misshaped products, miscoloured, too big, too small, any weirdos that mainstream market rejected, we love them all. 

 

"We are IMPERFECT people loved by PERFECT GOD" ROMANS 5:8

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At Perfectly Imperfect we feel incredibly lucky that we get to do what we love. We’d love for you to join us in the Perfectly Imperfect experience. For more information, get in touch!