In "How I Fell In Love With Ugly Food", Laura Ling shows how much people concern on the perfection of the produce after realised she is one of those people who reject to buy blemished fruits and vegetables. In the U.S, 40 percent of food produce is wasted and while 48 million Americans live in food-insecure household. Some of the produce is left as waste at the farm because they just look too ugly. After went to the dinner that serve dishes made from food considered as trash, she get inspired to rethink about way she shop and consume food. (2016)
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My Yes/No question is:
Will you pay for ugly things?
My answer is:
No, if it is ugly that means i don't like it and I don't want to pay for something I don't like.
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When going shopping with mom, she always choose the best-looking unblemished one. She told me to look before buying cloths. Look carefully if there is any spot on them. I often forget to check that or sometimes over look for those tiny thing. But when it comes to buying fruits and vegetables, it's much more obvious, I always buy the perfect one. And I think it is normal that we want what is best for ourselves. However, ugly or defective products can't be sold doesn't bother me much, but for wasted food problem, yes.
Last semester at the university, in new venture development class, I and my friends had to create a new business. The challenge was to create a business that has a good impact or help solve the third world problem. So, we decided to look at world hunger problem. Later we came up with the idea about how much food have throw away while many people in some countries are starving. After reading what Laura Ling wrote reminds me about this and food waste problem.
Supermarkets have to get rid of expired products. But actually it's still eatable after a couple days of the expired date. Food become trash because of company standard policy. We create million tons of food waste while we still have poverty and hunger problem to take care of. Could we just use this to help them? For example, bakery products can last almost a week after baked. And many shops don't keep them over night if it doesn't sold out. We could take this delicious bakery to feed some hungry homeless or sell it in very low price for them. Left over food from restaurants and university canteens also consider as trash. Why do we throw them in the bin? Some organzations or companies should take care of this seriously. If supermarkets care about people attitude toward their product quality, they can do it as a CSR(Corporate social responsibility) which they can help our society while received a good image.
I try to think of others idea about solving both food waste and hunger problems. Buying ugly produce might help for food waste. But I think they can get rid of them by change it in to something like jams, or animal food anyway. Do you have other ideas about how to take care of food waste and hungers? Can we give it more value or turn it into money?
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Reference
Ling, L. (2016, August 4). How I Fell In Love With Ugly Food. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-i-fell-in-love-with-ugly-food_us_579fbe18e4b004301c51b50f?
The title of this blog made me to think of the phrase, 'Don't judge the book with its cover'. We, sometimes, overlook the essence of things. A good book entertain and give you a lot of good ideas no matter how beautiful the cover it is. Likewise the essence of fruit and vegetables are mineral and its nutrition inside. Throwing out fruit which doesn't look beautiful outside is pitiful. If the tomatoes doesn't look beautiful, why not make tomato juice instead of discarding them as a waste or why not give to someone who needs it. My sister always bought vegetables with beautiful leaves but she has changed her mind to buy the not look beautiful ones now as most of the beautiful ones are with pesticide contamination. Currently, she likes to buy the organic products with no pesticide used. Beauty is not the issue for her now. The benefit to health is more important.
ReplyDeleteBonus, for your this question, "Will you pay for ugly things?" Yes, I will pay. I agree with Kitt. If "Ugly things" is vegetables doesn't look beautiful outside. I will pay it because it doesn't have pesticide contamination inside. That's a good vegetable from nature. The pesticide is toxic for the environment. It has effect to the living things. It will collect in the environment for long times and will damage ecosystem.
DeleteFor your other questions:
1. Do you have other ideas about how to take care of food waste and hungers?
- I have the ideas for take care of food waste. We can bring food waste to make EM. That's process of food waste ferment. EM is enzyme ionic plasma. It has usefulness for agriculture, make fertilizer, clean toilet, damage stain and so on. It can treate waste water. I think this product can build the value of products and income of community will be increase.
2. Can we give it more value or turn it into money?"
- We can give it more value and turn it into money follow above question in my answer.
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ReplyDeleteThe title is tempting so I decided to read your blog post and I really enjoy it. I think this commercial which base on true story is the answer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiooGJHZX3M
ReplyDeleteThe Food giving application in Kenya. It solved food waste problem especially in underdeveloped countries. I amazed how technology can help created such a valuable thing and also making a difference in the lives of others.
I've seen this video months ago. They made it very well and very inspiring for me. I hope it can rise awareness about this problem and inspired people to do something good or giving back to the society.
DeleteI have ever heard about Japanese bakery called Yamazaki. At the end of the day, if there are still have bread or sandwiches left at this shop, the sellers are ordered to throw those bread to the bins to avoid the rumor that they sells leftovers. If this application works, it will effectively help other poor people who need food to survive.
DeleteI also like the idea of transforming those with ugly looking to something else such as jams and candy. This can help reduce waste.
I think this is a good representation of marketing. People like to look at beautiful things. Take Kit-Kat for example. My sister went to Japan a few years ago, and she bought me boxes of Kit-Kat as souvenirs. It came with assortments of flavours such as green tea, apple, or original chocolate flavour. Each piece is individually wrapped and packaged in a cute box with handle. Exotic flavours often look fancy and have exquisite packaging, but they did not taste that different to me. The price, however, suggests the opposite. It is the look that matters!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the packaging of Japanese product really attracts to its customers. When my friends and I visited to Japan, we could not stop ourselves from buying back lots of snack and candy for our friends and relatives. The appearance of packaging makes to forget everything: price and taste. Maybe it's also because I trusted in Japanese QC system that make me to overlook in any other attributes in the product itself.
DeleteI won't buy an ugly thing but if it contains a lot of of useful things, I would like to buy and eat or use it. For example, some plants are ugly but they contain many useful nutritions so I would like to buy them. In addition, I always eat foods which are going to be expired soon but I keep and will eat for next days; these can decrease waste disposals and save my money to buy other foods.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to edible item, outside appearance is an important factor that is influent us to decide whether to buy it or not. Me too, I will not pay for something I do not like it. We have the right to choose the best one, so why we will not do so.
ReplyDeleteFor waste problem, I think producers should be responsible to find the way out for this. For example, they should perform research and development to transform ugly products to the other kind of goods which looks more tempting to buy. Moreover, if there is too many leftover goods on shelf, producers should analyse current consumer's demand and make a proper adjustment to their supply. And, for the leftover goods, donating them to the poor is quite good idea of paying back to society as well.
Your suggestion is very good. In my old school, which is very big compare to my new school. They have a pig farm, where the food that is left from student in lunch is feed to pigs.
ReplyDeleteLast week I went to Tops supermarket with my mom and I saw many people waiting for something. Then, I understood them, they waited for cooked food sales at 8 pm but it was still eatable for a couple days after expired date. I thought this promotion would help poor people to reach high quality of food in their life.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to food, I would say yes. I would buy them. Ugly in my sense here means blemish or flaw which came from nature. It does not include rotten or expired food. Talking about blemished fruits and vegetables,
ReplyDeleteyour article makes me think of the recent case from Tesco Lotus in the UK. One customer went out shopping at the supermarket as usual. Once he got back to prepare his meal, he found a dead worm on the cucumber and filed a compliant to Tesco. Their response to the man's complaint is brilliant and it's gone viral on a social network few days later. I think it's ok to have a little flaw on natural and unprocessed products such as fruit and vegetable. My mom always told me to pick the ones with wormholes instead of flawless vegetables because it refers to chemical-free and organic products. So some imperfections are there for good reasons.