FOR the past 20 years, the EU-wide marketing standards have restricted over 36 types of fruit and vegetables – with only the "finest" looking produce being permitted to sit on our grocery shelves. This has resulted in around 20 per cent of perfectly edible produce being excluded from general sale and wasted.
Now, Brussels seems to have come, at least partly, to its senses and from 1 July, knobbly carrots and bendy cucumbers will once again be on display. However, the ten most popular types of produce – from apples and strawberries to lettuce and tomatoes
, which account for 75 per cent of EU fruit and veg trade, will still be the under scrutiny of the bureaucrats.
With over half the world's population going to sleep hungry or starving, the immorality of food waste should be higher up the political agenda. A couple of years ago, I toured a Scottish veg processor, who supplies the main supermarkets. I was intrigued by a non-stop conveyor belt loaded with carrots, which was taking the produce out of the building and dumping it into huge skips. It transpired that these "imperfect" carrots were simply not up to scratch and did not meet the supermarkets' buying criteria. They were destined to be used as cattle feed.
At the time, I was horrified at the waste of such a huge amount of perfectly good produce. But as I have since discovered, this was simply the tip of the iceberg lettuce. When you add restrictive "use by" dates and the vast amounts of perfectly edible food thrown out by consumers into the equation, the real volume of fresh produce wasted each year in the UK is closer to 40 per cent of produce grown.
For too long, we've been brainwashed by both Brussels and the supermarkets into thinking that a misshapen tomato, an apple with a blemish, or a knobbly carrot are somehow freaks of nature. We're encouraged to think that they will not only taste bad, they may even be bad for us: that they are in some way "unnatural".
When Spanish friends of mine visited Edinburgh and saw row upon row of perfect peppers, each the same size, shape and colour; they were amazed and asked me if the peppers were real. In Spain, they explained, peppers of all shapes and sizes, and of varying degrees of colours and hues, were commonplace, even in supermarkets.
It seems that in the UK, our supermarkets have taken the EU standards to a new, obsessive level. This is accentuated through advertising – when was the last time you saw an imperfect piece of fruit or veg in an advert?
To my mind, this 'fake' produce is more freakish than any naturally grown piece of fruit or veg.
As any gardener will testify, the true quality of fruit and vegetables lie not in their appearance, but in their taste. A misshapen strawberry can still be deliciously sweet. A pronged carrot will taste great if it's the right variety; grown in fertile soil; tended to properly; and picked when at its best. Its taste will not diminish because it does not meet the uniform ideal of a bureaucrat's ruler.
We've become accustomed to "inexpensive" food, much of it imported from poverty-stricken countries, and at the same time, we're more ignorant of how our food is grown, the seasonality of produce and the enjoyment of fresh, local fruit and veg at its best. We've also become obsessed with the aesthetic of our food – how good it looks, rather than how good it tastes, or how nutritious it is.
Having worked on an organic farm, grown my own produce, and now as co-owner of an independent food retail business, I know that the veg that comes naturally out of the ground and the fruit that's plucked fresh from the bush is delicious, regardless of how it looks. Like everything in nature, including people, it comes in all shapes, sizes and colours.
It's surely time for us all to stand up against the insanity of these EU policies and the supermarkets' hype; to embrace the unsightly; to love the misshapen and to nurture the under or over-sized.
Let us have our knobbly, blemished and delicious fruit and veg – just as nature intended.
Dirk Douglas is a Founding Director of Edinburgh-based Earthy Foods & Goods, which supports Scottish growers and small-scale producers.SHAPE UP FOR CHEAPER PRODUCESHOPPERS should see the benefit of the EU U-turn on curvy cucumbers and knobbly carrots, with "mis-shapen" vegetables as much as 40 per cent cheaper in supermarkets.
The rules have been scrapped for 26 items: apricots, artichokes, asparagus, aubergines, avocadoes, beans, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflowers, cherries, courgettes, cucumbers, cultivated mushrooms, garlic, hazelnuts in shell, headed cabbage, leeks, melons, onions, peas, plums, ribbed celery, spinach, walnuts in shell, water melons and chicory.
The rules will remain in place for ten types of produce, which account for 75 per cent of EU fruit and vegetable trade, but supermarkets will be allowed to sell non-uniform specimens, as long as they are appropriately labelled.
These ten are: apples, citrus fruit, kiwi fruit, lettuces, peaches and nectarines, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, grapes and tomatoes.
The rules were initially drawn up in the late 1980s, following calls from within the industry, in an effort to ensure consistent quality for shoppers.
