Dive Brief:
- The Good Food, a new supermarket in Germany, is selling food that would normally be thrown away by most stores, according to Modern Farmer. Shoppers are able to pay what they want.
- The foods include fruits, vegetables, baked goods, and beer. The selections are either damaged or have an expired sell by date, but are all still edible.
- The Good Food was started to help combat food waste, hunger and help the environment. Worldwide, approximately 10% of human-made greenhouse gas emissions come from producing, transporting, storing, and preparing food that is never consumed.
Dive Insight:
While the concept of selling damaged food isn’t new, the pay-what-you-want idea seems to be something never tried before and one that U.S. grocers will need to watch. Many already sell ugly produce. Earlier this year, Hy-Vee added Robinson Fresh’s Misfits produce line to many of its 242 retail stores, embracing the “ugly” produce movement by offering the items at about a 30% discount.
Still, the name-your-price model could be hard to replicate in the U.S. due to high rents and competition with area food banks that put expired or damaged food to good use.
Daily Table, a Boston non-profit, sells both expired and surplus foods at steep discounts, while stores such as Whole Foods and Wal-Mart occasionally sell ugly produce at reduced prices, thanks in part to campaigns from EndFoodWaste.org.
American retailers should focus on educating consumers that imperfect or ugly produce tastes the same as normal-looking fruit and vegetables, either through in-store tastings or through marketing campaigns such as one from Inglorious Foods that celebrate imperfections.