Eating Ugly Produce Could Help Save the Broken Food System

Christine Moseley, who worked in the food industry for many years, is spearheading a one-woman start-up called Full Harvest that’s committed to tackling our country’s immense agriculture waste problem. Farmers dump a scary amount of farmed produce – about 20 percent of it doesn’t even make it off the farm. This is due, in large part, to industry standards requesting that stores only sell blemish-free products to their consumers. There’s just no home for the crooked carrot and the spotty lettuce these days, which is an utter shame considering how much water goes into farming. Moseley reached a turning point in her career when she was working for a $13-a-bottle juice company and visited a romaine lettuce farm that scrapped nearly 75% of their lettuce, selecting only the most pristine hearts to be packaged. “I knew then we had a broken food system. It was my aha moment and I vowed not to stop until I found a way for that produce to be utilized for consumption,” she said. The farmers “are really dictated by what those big grocery stores are demanding, because consumers are becoming pickier and pickier, so the supermarkets are getting more picky,” Moseley told TechCrunch.  

  Where Moseley offers a different idea for the produce than companies like Imperfect Produce – she utilizes the buyer to buyer (B2B) market. She’s behind the scenes connecting larger scale farms to different types of food producers, like juice companies who don’t need their produce to taste good (but not look perfect.) For sellers, it means they’ll be earning extra money for the product normally destined for the compost bins. For buyers who aren’t worried about the cosmetic look of the produce it means a cheaper price. What’s in it for you and me, as consumers? Those tempting but wildly expensive green juices at health food stores just may get a little cheaper. Moseley’s idea is getting traction – she’s raised $8.5 million in seed funding and her board is starting to grow. It’s not a one-woman team anymore, and that’s OK with her. She admits she’s been pleasantly surprised during the process of growing her startup that the focus of her company hasn’t been her gender, but rather on “execution and market opportunity.”

Feature photo: Imperfect Produce