Don’t be a Perfectionist

2021 is the international year of fruits and vegetables announced by FAO. Food waste is a bigger problem than many people realize.

In fact, nearly one-third of all food produced in the world is discarded or wasted for various reasons. That equates to nearly 1.3 billion tons every year according to UN.

Did you know that rummaging through a bin of apples until you find the most perfect-looking one contributes to food waste?

Though identical in taste and nutrition, so-called "ugly" fruits and vegetables get passed up for produce that is more pleasing to the eye.

The consumer demand for flawless fruits and vegetables has led major grocery chains to buy only picture-perfect produce from farmers. This leads to tons of perfectly good food going to waste.

It's such a big issue that major grocery chains like Walmart and Whole Food in USA have started offering "ugly" fruits and vegetables at a discount in an attempt to reduce waste.

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in 🇳🇿 New Zealand, we have high reputation of our fresh veggies and fruits products that export to overseas, according to 19/20 HortNZ annual report $6.39bn the value of horticulture in New Zealand and $4.2bn of total value of exports.

Here is the top 7 exports in 19/20, it’s amazing that we are feeding people in 130 countries all over the world. But this doesn’t n means that we are feeding the needy, as we all know about the market standards for national markets and there’s extreme on perfect looking standards for export products, not only for long life during on shipment but also almost perfect looking to attract people to buy. In another hand, out of those top 7 exports how many are kiwi‘s favourite? and more often can’t afford to eat and be enjoy by our own people?

Let‘s don’t be a perfectionist, pick fruits or veggies not because they’re perfect looking but see their inside and enjoy the taste.

Do your part by choosing slightly imperfect produce at the grocery store,or better yet, directly from our perfectly imperfect community as we support local growers who can’t get their perfect good products to Farmers Market on Sunday all over the country, not only feed family also working opportunities / volunteers helps their harvest, packing and even more.

“love who we are ❤️ ”