The battle to reduce food waste and increase access to nutritious food just got a whole lot cheaper and uglier in Australia. In early December, Woolworths launched its “odd bunch” campaign,

becoming the latest retailer to offer consumers “ugly” food at discount prices. Mainstream food outlets tell us that fruit and vegetables are ugly when they are blemished, misshapen (perhaps

with an extra appendage or two), or otherwise fail to meet their usual standards. Ugly food is marketed as a way to reduce food waste. But selling it cheap won’t help, because it doesn’t

address the underlying issue: that we’re buying too much food. WASTING AWAY Australian households throw out up to A$8 billion worth of food each year. The environmental impacts range from

storage or transportion. Yet rates of food waste seem to be similar everywhere, equating to about a third of the food produced. Research shows that 72% of Australians feel guilty when they

waste food, yet still do it. Over the past decade numerous initiatives have appeared, courtesy of charities such as SecondBite, Ozharvest, and The Yellow Van, which redistribute food to

those in need, as well as consumer awareness campaigns such as Love Food Hate Waste and FoodWise. SUPERMARKET SWOOP By offering discounted imperfect food, retailers are now positioning

themselves as part of this broader effort to cut food waste. Woolworths’ “Odd Bunch” campaign and Harris Farm Market’s “Imperfect Picks” are part of a worldwide trend started by French

supermarket Intermarché’s “Inglorious” initiative, launched earlier this year. Tied to the European Union’s year against food waste, Intermarché’s campaign aimed to “rehabilitate and

glorify” ugly food. It led to a 24% increase in store traffic and attracted global attention. Advertisements show Intermarché’s inglorious fruit and vegetables in all their wayward glory,

accompanied by descriptions such as “grotesque apple”, “ridiculous potato”, “hideous orange”, “disfigured eggplant” and “failed lemon”. Alongside the tongue-in-cheek descriptions are

reminders that under these deformed exteriors lies fresh, nutritious, tasty food, such as “a grotesque apple keeps the doctor away as well”. The undesirable natural packaging of inglorious

foods is presented as beneficial to consumers because they are 30% cheaper than their more aesthetically pleasing counterparts. But this message also reinforces the notion that “ugly” (even

if only skin-deep) equals “cheap” when it comes to food. SELL IT CHEAP, WASTE IT ANYWAY In affluent countries like France and Australia, access to cheaper food doesn’t mean less household

food waste. What’s more, charging lower prices for ugly fruit and vegetables also neglects the fact that the same labour is required to produce and harvest crops, regardless of their

appearance. Thus ugly food helps to perpetuate a food system that undervalues food, in which consumers routinely buy too much and throw away the leftovers. My research has investigated the

food waste behaviours of consumers of mainstream supermarkets and alternative food networks such as community gardens and farmers’ markets. The results suggest that people who grow some of

their own food or talk directly to producers go to great lengths to prevent food waste. These consumers speak of the time, effort and care that underpins food production, and are motivated

to avoid waste out of respect for the food itself as well as its producer. This attitude values food not in terms of its appearance or cost, but as a source of nutrition and pleasure

painstakingly produced by a combination of factors, both human and non-human (such as water, weather and soil nutrients). Cheaper food — ugly or not — is not really the way to encourage

people to rethink and reduce our wasteful behaviours. Ugly food should be sold and eaten, not wasted. It should be priced fairly. But we must also learn to respect and value our food beyond

its appearance and price. Only by promoting ethical and sustainable practices will we really get a grip on the problem of food waste.