No More Waste?

When you imagine an apple, what do you see? It's likely a round, red, shiny fruit. But some apples aren’t so perfect. Many are lumpy or come in odd colors. They might look weird, but most of these apples are still good to eat. Yet every year, billions of pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables are thrown away before they even hit store shelves. Why? Simply because they are considered “ugly.” 

But what if these fruits and veggies got a makeover? Would people eat them if they were cute? Researchers are finding out!

Sometimes ugly produce is fed to livestock. Some imperfect fruit is used to create other products, like applesauce or apple juice.

But most of the time, it’s sent to a landfill, where it rots. As it breaks down, it releases methane. This powerful greenhouse gas traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere. Experts say the increase in gases like methane in the atmosphere has led to a steady rise in Earth’s temperature over time.

Producing food also requires a lot of resources. So when it’s tossed without being eaten, the energy used to grow it, harvest it, and transport it all goes to waste.

Businesses have tried to find solutions to this problem. Sometimes they sell ugly fruits and veggies for a cheaper price. Still, much of the imperfect produce winds up in the trash.

Kacy Kim is a researcher and professor at Bryant University in Rhode Island. When she came across an ad that described ugly food in a way that made it seem human, she got an idea. She wondered if people would be more likely to buy ugly food if it seemed to have humanlike qualities. So Kim and fellow researchers gave strange-looking produce googly eyes and names!

To test out her idea, Kim conducted two studies. In the first, people looked at ads featuring an eggplant. Half the participants were shown pictures of  regular-looking eggplants. The other half were shown lumpy eggplants. In both cases, some of the eggplants had googly eyes—and people said those eggplants were more attractive.

For the second study, some of the produce was given human names. Think Joey the pepper and Mary the carrot. People preferred the produce with names.

“When the fruit was humanized, people had more positive feelings about it,” says Kim.

Kim hopes her team's experiments will help save ugly fruits and veggies from the scrap heap. If customers are more open-minded, she says, they might be more willing to buy imperfect produce. That will help reduce food waste.

“Just a quick, simple tweak of our perception will change minds,” explains Kim. “So why not try it?”