Evan Lutz
CEO & Founder, Hungry Harvest
When consumers expect an aesthetically perfect food product, imperfect but edible produce goes to waste. It’s time we rethink our standards.
We have a perfection expectation problem.
One hundred years ago when my great grandfather was farming in New Jersey, he could sell his entire harvest regardless of size, shape or superficial beauty. Today, demand for aesthetic perfection and homogeneity in produce makes whole-harvest selling impossible for farmers. Annually, 66,500 acres are left unharvested because produce doesn’t meet arbitrary standards. Leaving 20 billion pounds of produce in the field makes farming nearly impossible.
A need for change
In one of the wealthiest, most advanced societies in history, it’s ridiculous that we have yet to protect 40 percent of our food from being wasted annually. We waste almost a quarter of agricultural water on food that’s not eaten. We generate the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of almost 15 percent of cars in the world by growing, shipping and processing uneaten food. Without a change, we will be leaving our children a compromised plane.