CLEVELAND — When you’re walking through the grocery store produce section, do you normally skip over the disfigured fruit or bruised veggies?
Most of that “ugly” produce won’t make it to the display shelf anyway, because people seem to want their fruits and vegetables to look perfect.
It’s the reality that Ashley Weingart found when she started her business, buying imperfect produce.
“The number one thing in our landfills is food, unfortunately, that’s a problem because it emits dangerous methane gas,” Weingart said.
Her company, Perfectly Imperfect Produce, is trashing the stigma that food must look perfect to be used.
She built a team with Laura West and Chef Aubrey Johansen to intercept the unique produce before it contributes to growing landfills.
“For the farms, it’s hard to find a profitable outlet for your seconds or your Grade B product, typically what ends up happening is you lose money on it,” West said.
“Eighty percent of our water, 40 % of our land and 10 % of our energy is used to produce our food,” Weingart said. “It’s a shame to see all those resources wasted on food that’s not even being eaten.”
Once the food is rescued, it’s boxed and shipped out to solve another problem: hunger. There are 40 million people considered food insecure in the United States.
“For every box that we sell, we donate produce to local food pantries,” Weingart said.
Over the past three years, they’ve donated about 20,000 pounds to pantries in Northeast Ohio.
“Perfectly Imperfect Produce is not only getting this rescued produce to people, but it’s teaching people how to eat healthfully, on a budget and within 30 minutes,” Johansen said.
In her role, Johansen gets to be creative with the new produce coming in. She proves unique recipes to go with the sometimes-foreign food customers receive.
“They can go on our blog and find a recipe that’s featuring that strange ingredient and it’ll teach them how to use it,” Johansen said.
A way to see their work come full circle, saving food, feeding the hungry and leaving the Earth better than they found it.
In 2018, the company rescued about half a million pounds of produce and delivered it to their nearly 2,000 customers.
If you’re interested in learning more about the box options and pricing, click on this website.