Would you pay a quarter for this pepper?
That’s what I paid yesterday for this pepper that I found on my supermarket’s reduced price rack. It came packaged with a similarly blemished pepper (see below) for 50 cents. Not surprisingly, I’m a big believer in this idea.
As we’ve discussed before, many supermarkets shoot for perfect-looking produce. Anything that doesn’t reach that status, is relegated to the dumpster, unless…that store has a sale rack.
This idea makes way too much sense not to exist in every grocery store. Why not make some money on items that still can be used? The stores I’ve spoken with who don’t employ a sale rack say they want to create an association of ‘complete freshness’ in customers’ minds and a cut-rate produce area wouldn’t encourage that. Hmm.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t pay full price for these green peppers with black spots. Yet, cutting out the rot on these peppers took all of 30 seconds.Â
Yesterday, I told the produce manager–an older guy who seemed to be on the same page as me, waste-wise–that I appreciated the rack and asked how he determines what to move there. He said that for some items it’s blemishes, but others are just a bit soft. If I read his expression correctly, he’d long sold these items at regular price.Â
And here’s why. Cutting into the pepper, even I was surprised by how “perfect” the interior looked:
   
Comments
3 responses to “Pick a Pepper”
I agree and I would happily save some money and buy imperfect produce (if it were local and organic) but only if I had a plan to use it before tomorrow. And for some reason I would feel compelled to cook it. I wonder why the stores don’t maximize their profit by using this type of pepper in their prepared foods? Nobody would ever know that it once had a blemish.
Jeanne forwarded me the link to this blog and I’ve enjoyed reading it. My daughter and I used to lead a “Food Not Bombs” chapter in Hoboken. While this group is traditionally punk, my daughter and I loved the concept of collecting food that was being thrown out (we never asked for fresh donations because that would defeat the purpose of saving food from being wasted). It tended to be vegan and we would cook it and share it in the park with whoever wanted a home cooked nutritious meal. Most of the people who joined us were homeless. We rarely ran short on food and it was all produce that would otherwise been tossed.
Thanks for raising awareness about this. It’s important to be mindful about how we use our resources.
Thanks, Melissa. I’ve spoken with a few local Food Not Bombs people and I’ve been impressed. It’s funny, they do have a bit of a punk rock reputation, which just proves that we can’t make superficial judgments.
I was thinking the same thing about the store using the reduced-price produce for in-house prepared foods. My guess is that they’d be too afraid of anyone getting sick (an irrational fear) to use sale produce. Also, at their inflated prices, they’d probably want to use the freshest possible stuff. When I worked at a supermarket produce section, the deli guys would always come grab a head of lettuce from the cold case like any other shopper (except that, of course, they didn’t pay). Had they asked, I could have given them ones almost as good that I had culled earlier.
As for this 25 cent pepper being local and organic, dream on…
Here Here!
Eugene OR has a grocery store called Sundance that specializes in organic and local produce. They have a section to their produce that is labeled “distressed” and marked at 50% off.
It’s a practice I wish I could find in my home grocery stores.