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There is growing attention on the topic of food waste in sustainability and food security circles. It’s estimated that 40% of the food grown, distributed, and sold in the United States is wasted. In our own sunny California, it’s estimated that 80,000 tons a day are wasted.
These figures are staggering and alarming, but not necessarily a big surprise to us. As growers of perishable food with multiple sales channels, we have an up close and personal view of the food chain from field to our various markets, which include wholesale, retail, and direct markets.
About 30 percent or 500,000 pounds of our annual harvest is not considered acceptable for sale to regular retail channels due to cosmetic challenges like slight bruising, surface scarring, irregular size or being too ripe to withstand the retail shipping and handling chain.
We are committed to finding the right home for all of the food that we grow. We divert about 300,000 pounds of this cosmetically unacceptable fruit to our Farmers Market customers and to you, our CSA members. We ask you to bite into or eat around a picking bruise, not to be bothered by a knick or scar on the skin, to accept large or small pieces of fruit, and to enjoy fruit that is sweet, juicy, and tree ripened – a perk almost impossible in the retail market.
The fruit that is too ripe or too cosmetically challenged to be eaten out of hand makes its way to our farm kitchen and to our drying yard. Combined, about 115,000 pounds of fruit a year turns into conserves, filling for pastries, and into our fantastic sun dried fruit.
The remaining fruit that can’t be eaten one way or another is an essential nitrogen source for our compost, which in turn feeds our trees. So, in a way, we end up eating those composted fruits too. That’s regenerative agriculture at its best!
