On the outskirts of Barrie, Ontario, sunlight illuminates the unconventional cucumber and parsley piled on crates at Eat Impact’s warehouse.
Employees at the online retailer sort and pack containers with these rejects and misfits — twisted carrots, blemished bananas, misshapen potatoes — for home deliveries across southern Ontario.
“The goal is to help people eat better, save money, and fight food waste all at the same time,” said Anna Stegink, who founded Eat Impact in late 2022.
With prices soaring and budgets stretched, consumers are increasingly turning to so-called imperfect food to save on produce that a new crop of online retailers says is just as delicious — if a bit gnarled.
Billions of pounds of Canadian produce go to waste each year, much of it because it fails to meet the strict cosmetic standards adhered to by the retail industry.
“It either rots in the fridge, the landfill, or the farmer’s field,” said Stegink.
Traditional retailers primarily offer top-grade fruits and vegetables, leaving farmers and distributors stuck with loads of fresh, perfectly edible but not very photogenic produce.
Cucumbers, for example, must adhere to strict length and width restrictions and be straight, only “moderately tapered” and of “good natural green color” to achieve first-grade classification, according to government agricultural regulations.
Meanwhile, grocery bills keep climbing. Canadian families will pay about $1,800 more on average for groceries this year than they did in 2022, according to an annual report on the food industry by researchers at four Canadian universities.
“Prioritizing eating healthy and buying this fresh produce has become harder for many of us,” Stegink said. “Our idea was to start Eat Impact to connect ugly and surplus produce with people who are happy to eat it.”
Further west, online retailer Spud says it saved about 84,000 pounds of imperfect produce from the landfill last year by offering everything from bruised apples to odd-shaped oranges across British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, and the Sunshine Coast as well as the Calgary and Edmonton areas.
Subscribers save up to 50 percent on their items compared to traditional brick-and-mortar outlets, said manager Emma McDonald. They also have the added benefit of fresher food made possible by direct-to-doorstep delivery that bypasses the produce aisle. About 90 percent of its inventory turns over within 48 hours, she said.
Given the savings, waste awareness, and inclination toward regional fruits, it’s no surprise that many subscribers skew younger.
“We’re serving families and multi-person households that are a bit busier, that are looking to save time or are prioritizing that organic, local aspect,” McDonald said, noting that Spud has offered imperfect produce for eight years — although business has ramped up recently.
“A lot of our customers are physically disabled and can’t get to the grocery store themselves. And some people who might rely on takeout now have this option to create healthy meals that aren’t hurting their wallets,” she added.
McDonald herself enjoys the bananas for smoothies — 18 yellow ones for $5 in a recent deal — and local producer Fraserland Organics’ “Pugly” potatoes, which Spud sells in five-pound bags for $6.
Many produce delivery services have relationships with local producers. Vicky Ffrench, who runs Cookstown Greens — one of the 10 or so farms Eat Impact directly sources from — said online grocers have fostered greater awareness that it’s just as easy to enjoy a parsnip or parsley root that has grown to full size, or a potato that might look a bit heart-shaped.
