Laura Sandys, the MP for Thanet South, wants to set up a company specifically to sell “ugly” food.
Well, they say people eat with their eyes, so good luck with that, love!
She said: “We have had very cheap food in the UK for many years. In some ways this has driven us to value it much less, so while we don’t pay much for food it costs us more money to produce it.”
Mrs Sandys, who would like to market the food under the brand name Ugly, has been discussing the matter with farmers in an attempt to understand why some fresh produce is rejected by supermarkets.
“You see the most amazing reasons,” she said. “For example, an apple that may not have enough red on one side, or too much green on the other. These apples do get used in things like apple juice, but obviously at a much lower [price]. Why should an apple that has not enough red or green not be acceptable when it tastes exactly the same?”
'Proles! Eat your veg, yes, even the ugly ones, if you know what's good for you! The farming lobby must be appeased at all cost!'
According to Mrs Sandys the branding could be used to sell fish such as Pollock, which is considered less desirable than cod or haddock. It could also be used to market meats that have fallen out of fashion with the modern consumer, she added.
Ooooh, don't encroach on
Jamie's turf, Laura! There'll be a severed cod's head on your pillow if you aren't careful...
To an extent, Mrs Sandys has a point ..
ReplyDeleteWhere's the harm in buying perfectly good, if slightly assymetrically-shaped vegetables ?
I recall, as a child, growing up in a northern industrial city, that things like tomatoes, which weren't quite ripe, were often placed on the upper ledge where the sash windows joined & turned daily, until they did ripen ..
Neither do I think its as clear cut as simply appeasing the "farming lobby" .. all the produce which is grown and then thrown away as not being aesthetically pleasing has to be paid for by someone ..
We've become spoiled & molly-coddled into being able to demand year-round fruit & veg which is out of season .. the same can be said for the so-called "organic" con ..
When I was a kid, all veg was organic .. if the spuds still had soil on them, they got washed before cooking .. your mother bought whatever the Greengrocer had for sale ..
If she can find a way to mass-market produce which might not meet the photogenic standards of celebrity chefs but will keep the costs down .. I say good luck to her ..
Perhaps she might also care to look into the ridiculous amount of plastic packaging used by supermarkets, which only gets thrown away .. maybe we might see the return of the humble brown-paper bag ?
We first choose what to eat with our eyes, and this has served the human race well for several thousand millemnia. If people prefer food that looks a certain way, that's their privilege, and it's not the job of MPs to tell them otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's a reason pollack is less popular than haddock or cod - unless you blitz it with herbs and spices, it tastes like boiled knitting. People vote with their purses and wallets, and there's a reason for this.
Plastic and other modern packaging:
ReplyDelete1/ reduces wastage through damage.
2/ Speeds the distribution system thus reducing wastage by deteriation through age.
3/ Often preserves the product on shelf for far longer than loose products.
4/ Is what consumers want.
Undeveloped countries lose up to 50% of their food in the distribution system alone.
Well, bit torn on this one. On the one hand, there's the green localist woo thing, on the other if she's doing this on a genuinely free market basis (i.e. no looking for grants etc) good luck to her. Maybe some of us are happy to buy ugly veg, especially for cookery where you're not going to see it in the final product on the table. I already prefer to buy "ugly" food in some of the "savers" range; the packaging on my chicken legs tells me they're cheap because they're "a range of sizes" but they look much the same to me as the "correctly" sized ones.
ReplyDeleteIt has a bit of the Reggie Perrins about it, you know, Grot Shop. Of course it does have the slight problem that if she succeeds, prices between pretty and ugly food will equalise...
I don't quite get the attitude of people who seem to have a problem with things being too good. We are being spoiled by having access to low priced non-ugly food, as if this is some kind of problem. If the ugly food is simply being wasted that could be regarded as a problem but is it? Free markets tend to work against throwing away anything that can be either sold or made into something that can be sold, even if it is only compost.
ReplyDeleteAt home our waste management is very efficient, everything gets composted or fed to chickens.
So long as she's not asking the taxpayers for the money, it's a good question as to why fruit and veg have to be photo perfect for every purpose. After all, their fate is to be masticated; very few wind up as life models for oil paintings.
ReplyDeleteFor the purposes of eating, freshness, flavour and texture are more important than looks but these are compromised by selective breeding for visual appeal, shelf life and resilience in transport.
Thus we end up with giant strawberries which taste of nothing.
Good luck to her, but she'll have to promote food with taste first as until consumers demand e.g. their tomatoes with taste, the distribution system will continue to demand products which primarily look good on display.
Poutine - fried potato chips with cheese curds and gravy. Looks bad tastes great.
ReplyDeleteOr possibly we could eat cod instead of throwing it back into the sea, dead, as demanded by the EU and our quisling politicians.
ReplyDeleteTalking of which, Iceland do a product called "Cod Kievs", which are like chicken kievs but, er, cod. Don't even think about it. However bored you are with your regular diet. God made chickens with a hollow bit in the middle, and made cod without, and as it turns out God knew what he was doing.
ReplyDeleteReally, if you want food that not only looks incredibly ugly but surpasses that with what comes out the oven after 20 minutes in terms of taste and texture, the Cod Kiev is the dish for you.
"Where's the harm in buying perfectly good, if slightly assymetrically-shaped vegetables ?"
ReplyDeleteNone, and if I'm buying stew ingredients in the farm shop, I could care less what they look like. But we aren't throwing the 'ugly' veg away. It's just fetching a lower price.
And that's down to market pressure, as Richard points out. So meddling in that is rather like trying to swim against the tide.
"And there's a reason pollack is less popular than haddock or cod - unless you blitz it with herbs and spices, it tastes like boiled knitting."
In fish fingers and fish cakes too, it's not so bad. But strangely unappealing as a cut of plain white(ish) fish on the plate.
"Undeveloped countries lose up to 50% of their food in the distribution system alone."
Good point!
"Of course it does have the slight problem that if she succeeds, prices between pretty and ugly food will equalise..."
I wouldn't worry. I'll be astonished if she succeeds!
"I don't quite get the attitude of people who seem to have a problem with things being too good. "
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of it's Dick Puddlecote's 'full-time worriers' at work...
"So long as she's not asking the taxpayers for the money..."
With a politician, even if you can't see a way she's doing that, she probably is!
"Or possibly we could eat cod instead of throwing it back into the sea, dead, as demanded by the EU and our quisling politicians."
Oh, indeed!
But not if we're just going to make Ian B's Cod Kievs out of it. That's even worse!