I always thought that the reason all cucumbers were straight was because consumers refused to buy crooked ones. Rows and rows of Orwellian-utopian-perfect fruit and vegetables, with not a blemish in site, in every supermarket bugged the hell out of me. I believed it was the population who not only wanted picture-perfect people but also wanted picture-perfect food. And I imagined the mountainous piles of rotting fruit and veg that was quite simply too visually offensive to appear on our plates and all the people around the world going hungry every day. What a travesty.
I in turn blamed advertising, consumerist culture, Americans. But it turns out that it was in fact EU regulations that meant it was actually ILLEGAL to sell non-conformist grub. How insane is that? Very. It was so insane that the enforcement organisation the Rural Payments Agency actually arrested a trader in Bristol because he sold 520 kiwi fruit that were slightly too small. It all sounds like a Brass Eye sketch. But it’s all true. Bizarre.
These laws were all brought into force in the 80s but apparently in 2008 the EU decided to get rid of the laws. Maybe they started to realise just how much waste was being created by this madness. Possibly the farmers' market advocates started to turn the tide for consumers. Maybe it was because now care more about taste than look it seems thanks to all these celebrity double barrel named chefs extolling the virtue of home grown. Maybe it was pressure from the supermarkets who had already followed suit. The leftie lot at Waitrose had already rebelled and flagrantly abused the laws by selling ugly fruit for jam. The rather less reactionary Sainsbury’s had mounted a far more polite lobbying campaign “Save our Ugly Fruit and Veg”. We were on the brink of apple anarchy. Whatever the reason the EU caved. But they didn’t cave completely.
They scrapped the rules for some fruit and veg. But not others. So we can have ugly apricots, asparagus, aubergines, avocados, brussel sprouts, cucumbers, garlic, leeks, onions, peas, plums and spinach. But we can’t have ugly apples, citrus fruit, kiwis, lettuce, peaches, pears, strawberries or tomatoes. Isn’t this even more mad??
Also this apparent rethink happened in 2008, the ban was lifted in July 2009. It is now 2011. But I have yet to see curved cucumbers in my local supermarkets. Their brussel sprouts are the brassica equivalent of Brad Pitt. So what is going on??
Are we now too conditioned to demand beautiful produce? After years of cosmetically perfect carrots is a wonky one just too much for us and do we suspect the worse if we see a knobbly potato? Are supermarkets clinging to the vision of uniformity or is it that we simply won’t buy them? I find it hard to believe that in these recession-hit times people would refuse to buy ugly food if it was cheaper.
After the furore of 2008, supermarkets and consumers have gone pretty quiet on this issue. A quick internet search yielded little in the way of current campaigns. There is one Facebook campaign that is about to be archived because it was aimed at the EU. But that’s it.
So how can we deal with this if supermarkets won’t sell us ugly fruit?
As always there are some clever social innovators out there coming up with inventive solutions and bypassing supermarkets altogether getting ugly fruit straight onto our plates. For example instead of selling perfect fruit to supermarkets Prince Charles is growing his potatoes for South Gloucestershire's school meals service. So instead of up to 50% of potatoes that are less than perfect being used for cattle feed they now have over 90% on school dinner plates, which means kids get great organic veg and schools save money. We’ve also seen the rise of local farmers markets, specialist organic shops and farm shops. There are also now organisations that deliver boxes of fruit and veg straight to your door. All these allow us to buy food straight from the producer without having to go through supermarkets at all.
But these are all at the margins. The vast majority of consumers still buy their fruit and veg from one of the major supermarket retailers so if we are to bring this to the mainstream we need to see ugly fruit and veg in supermarkets. I want to buy it - so come on consumers let’s use our people power to sort this out.
Schoolchildren are taking the matters in to their own hands selling wonky carrots and grimy radishes to tempt Waitrose shoppers to opt for fresh produce grown by local schools rather than the sterile, picked washed and bagged versions stocked by the supermarket. Go kids!
But what are we doing? Nothing!! We need one that is aimed at the supermarkets! So here you go, it has a comedy edge and is very much my own personal campaign but hopefully it will raise awareness of the issue. So like my page people and we will build a mighty movement to change the aesthetics of our food forever.
Check out more comedy veg on the Gardener's World facebook page.
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