Northern Virginia is joining the ugly produce movement and discovering that an ugly apple won’t spoil the bunch. –Lani Furbank
Cherry-picking the prettiest or most uniform fruits and vegetables from farms means grocery store shelves are filled with perfect rows of shiny apples, and harvested fields are left with tons of misshapen, off-color or stunted ones.
This dichotomy is part of the reason why 40 percent of food in the U.S.—worth about $165 billion—is wasted, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. In protest, consumers and businesses started embracing the inner beauty of these ugly fruits and vegetables.
The @UglyFruitAndVeg campaign brought viral attention to the issue, Bon Appetit food management company sells ugly foods to its clients, and New York chef Dan Barber uses food scraps to create inspired meals through his WastED campaign. The USDA and the EPA announced a national target for reform last September: Reduce food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030.
Organizations in the region are answering the call with innovative takes on how to tackle the problem of food waste on a local scale.
HungryHarvest
In a spin on the CSA model, HungryHarvest rescues ugly or unwanted produce from local farms and delivers variety boxes to subscribers in NoVA, Maryland and D.C. The boxes come in three sizes, and each contains a combination of leafy greens, assorted vegetables ranging from sweet potatoes to zucchini and fruits such as apples or strawberries. CEO Evan Lutz piloted the idea as a student at the University of Maryland, and since he founded the business in 2014, he has recovered 300,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables otherwise going to waste. For every box delivered, HungryHarvest donates 1.2 pounds of produce to a food bank, a community charity or a free farmers market, which they host periodically in food deserts. Lutz appeared on Shark Tank in January, and the sharks (funders) offered him $100,000 for a 10 percent share in the company.
FruitCyle
FruitCycle, a line of dried and shelf-stable products like cinnamon apple chips, seasoned kale chips and strawberry-jalapeno syrup, enlists locally sourced ugly produce. Founder Elizabeth Bennett came up with the concept after seeing the stunning amount of perfectly good peaches left behind at a pick-your-own orchard. “I knew that food waste was a problem, but I’d never seen it in that large quantity before,” she says. In the first year of production, FruitCycle saved over 14,000 pounds of apples. Their products are sold online and in various locations throughout NoVA, including Whole Foods in Clarendon, Senzu Juicery in Alexandria and Ah Love Oil & Vinegar in Shirlington and Fairfax.
Virginia Food Works and Homegrown Virginia
The Prince Edward County Cannery handled over 22,000 pounds of produce in 2015, much of it ugly. This produce came to the cannery from farms and food entrepreneurs all over the state, with the help of Virginia Food Works and Homegrown Virginia. The nonprofit Virginia Food Works helps producers make and package food items for commercial sale, with clients like Back Pocket Provisions, which buys local tomatoes to produce and sell bloody mary mix. Homegrown Virginia, a for-hire service, works with farmers to transform their surplus fruits and vegetables into value-added products like jams, sauces and syrups. “[Farmers] were so busy during the harvest season that they didn’t have the time to drop everything and go to the cannery and make the product themselves,” explains Allie Hill, president of the board of Virginia Food Works and owner of Homegrown Virginia. Snead’s Farm in Fredericksburg sends its unsold berries and tomatoes to Homegrown Virginia to be turned into marinara sauce and jam that Snead’s then sells at its farm stand.