Canadians increasingly turning to ‘imperfect’ food as grocery prices soar

With prices soaring, consumers are turning increasingly to so-called imperfect food to save on produce that a fresh crop of online grocers says is just as tasty.

On the outskirts of Barrie, Ont., sunlight washes over the outcast cucumber and parsley stacked on skids at Eat Impact’s warehouse.

Workers at the online grocer sort and pack containers with these rejects and misfits — tentacled carrots, scarred bananas, bulbous potatoes — for home deliveries across southern Ontario.

“The goal is helping 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 turning increasingly to so-called imperfect food to save on produce that a fresh crop of online grocers says is just as tasty — if a little gnarled.

Billions of pounds of Canadian produce go to waste every year, much of it because it fails to live up to the strict cosmetic criteria adhered to by the retail industry.

“It either rots in the fridge, the landfill or the farmer’s field,” said Stegink.

Mainstream retailers sell primarily first-grade fruits and vegetables, leaving farmers and distributors stuck with heaps of fresh, perfectly edible but not quite photogenic produce.

Cucumbers, for example, must conform to tight length and width restrictions and be straight, only “moderately tapered” and of “good characteristic green colour” to achieve first grade classification, federal agricultural regulations state.