AUSTIN — There's a new food delivery service in town bringing fresh, yet "imperfect" and "ugly" fruits and vegetables straight to your door.
Imperfect Produce launched its service in Austin this week in an effort to assist with the local fight against hunger and food waste. San Antonio already has the service, and Houston and Dallas are expected to follow in the coming months.
The business found its start three years ago in San Francisco when CEO Ben Simon and his friends first launched a student moment in college called the "Food Recovery Network," which also made its way to UT Austin, in an effort to recover food that would be otherwise be wasted in campus dining halls.
"We started to notice that there is huge amount of produce getting wasted on farms. There's actually 20 billion pounds per year and largely because it's a little too ugly. It looks a little too big, some are scarring, some discoloration, but it's still perfectly good to eat," said Simon. "So, we got in touch with those farmers and asked could we pay you a fair price for this produce, bring it to market and distribute it to people's houses, deliver it every week as a subscription? So, that's basically the concept for 'Imperfect.'"
The business is also working alongside the Central Texas Food Bank to aid them in their mission of getting as many nutritious foods on the tables of those the food bank serves as possible.
In just its first week of launching in Austin, Simon said nearly 2,000 people have signed up for subscriptions. He shared it's exciting for his team to now belong to a city that wants to improve its sustainability efforts.
"Food waste is one of our biggest problems in this country. We've got about 40 percent of our food going to waste. We grow enough food to feed everyone, and yet, you have one in six Americans struggling with hunger. largely in part because we're wasting all of this perfectly good food," Simon said. "Imperfect is on a mission to bring this food to market and also help mitigate the effects of climate change of all the resources that go into growing this food as well."
Delivery areas and routes can be found here on the Imperfect Produce sign-up page.