Glory be to God for mis-shapen things:
For apples of many colours
Giant carrots with long, forked tails
Brussels sprouts that don’t make the grade
Soft plums with short shelf lives,
Real food that tastes of heaven
Without costing the earth.
(with apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Huge amounts of fruit and vegetables are wasted because they do not comply to rigid specifications demanded by superstores. Writing in The Guardian about Holme Farm’s Brussels sprouts that need to be between 30mm and 40mm, Felicity Lawrence reports that ‘just under two-thirds will make the grade”.

In her book, “Not on the Label” Lawrence looks at the waste involved in carrot production: “For every 30 tonnes of carrots harvested, just 10 tonnes are used. As well as the vegetables rejected because they are marked or damaged in some way, anything that is bent, or has a slightly green top, gets graded out.”

Supermarkets are demanding that their apple growers produce larger sized apples (on top of other exacting specifications). The repercussions of this seemingly simple request are complicated and detrimental. In ‘Not on the Label’ John Dickson from Cambridgeshire says: “But to achieve those bigger apples I have to prune my trees much harder, and overfeed them. The apple is less well balanced because of the excess fertilizer, it loses flavour. Then you get bitter pit – that’s brown spots – and I have to spray all the time with calcium to prevent the markings.” A Cox may have been sprayed up to sixteen times by the time it reaches the shops” adds Felicity Lawrence.

In ‘Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets”, Joanna Blythman writes: “Supermarket specifications are the horticultural equivalent of body fascism, a ruthless rooting-out of all that is non-uniform, however common or normal. The truly terrifying thing about them, and the people who conceive them, is their cavalier disregard for the realities of the natural world…” Size, shape, colour, texture, softness, travelling qualities and shelf life are a superstore buyer’s priorities. Flavour comes a poor second, and goodness is not discussed.

What we can do?

1. Read: ‘Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets’ by Joanna Blythman, Fourth Estate, 2004, and ‘Not on the Label; what really goes into the food on your plate’ by Felicity Lawrence, Penguin, 2004 so that you are au fait with the arguments.

2. We should make an effort to change our shopping habits. Instead of going to the superstore to do all of our weekly shopping, we should try to shop more frequently during the week for fresh produce from local independent shops.

3. Buy local fruit and vegetables in season at farmers’ markets, Country Markets, farm shops, or from vegetable box schemes where the stipulations about size and shape are less of a problem.

4. Grow our own – get an allotment. See our RULES FOR LOCAL DISTINCTIVENESS

See our Producing the Goods pages