Nothing brightens your day like a carrot with a cheeky protuberance or a potato that’s a dead ringer for Adrian Chiles. Buying unusual-looking fruit and veg saves money, too, because they’re classed as imperfect. Don't dismiss them as second-rate. Join our movement for change!
Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that the majority of fruit and veg displayed on shop shelves looks like something from a produce competition: perfectly formed and buffed to a mirror shine? No wonder, then, that so many British shoppers now see knobbly, dirty, scuffed produce as the second-class citizens of the fruit and veg world. But shout this loud: it tastes the same! (Some would say a bit of dirt makes it taste even better.)
Beneath their eccentric and irregular appearance, these quirky beauties are every bit as delicious and wholesome as the conventionally shaped versions. Maybe even more so. We all want more natural food, and as anyone who grows their own knows, lumps, bumps and even the odd nibbled leaf are exactly that – natural.
We’re calling for change, and we’ve teamed up with the National Trust to get the message across. We all need to vote with our purses and celebrate less than perfect produce by buying it and cooking it – while saving ourselves money in the process. To kick off our year-long campaign, top food writer Xanthe Clay investigates the law as it stands. Plus, we have come up with four wonderful vegetarian recipes (see the November issue of the mag) that make a hero out of fruit and veg at their knobbly best.
Mad rules and European men
The answer lies with the EU. Its regulations have had farmers in a two-decade-long stranglehold, decreeing that 36 of our most popular fruits and vegetables had to conform to ludicrously strict rules on size, shape and colour. Cucumbers, for example, could bend no more than 1cm per 10cm for Class I. Class II could bend a whole 2cm, but any more and they couldn’t be sold in shops, even though they were as crisp, tasty and downright cucumber-y as could be.
Things got slightly better in 2009 when rules were relaxed on 26 fruit and veg, including (hurrah!) cucumbers. But to be legally sold, those that don’t meet Class I or II cosmetic standards have to be labelled as ‘for processing’, ‘for cooking’ or similar. And the old regulations remain in place for 10 of the bestselling greengrocer’s lovelies, including apples, tomatoes, strawberries, grapes and pears – items that account for over 75 per cent of sales.
Fruit and veg that don’t conform to this perfection, which are perhaps 1cm too small or a little too curvy for either Class I or Class II, may (if they’re lucky) be consigned to processing or animal food. Many, however, end up on the rubbish tip – which is shocking, as there’s absolutely nothing unwholesome about them. We aren’t talking about mouldy, less fresh or diseased goods – simply less cosmetically perfect specimens. It really is just about looks, or rather what some bureaucrat has decided is an appropriate size, shape and colour for a particular vegetable.
A shocking waste
Consigning all this perfectly good produce to the dump is madness. And it’s not just that the food doesn’t meet EU regulations. Supermarkets do sell some Class II and cooking produce, mostly in their economy ranges, but they reject much of it. They say there isn’t the demand, which isn’t really surprising. Food condemned to second-class status, however unfairly, isn’t going to have the consumer appeal of the top-grade stuff.
So, we need to change all that and take action – see below for how you can make a difference. It will be good for farmers, for the environment and for us, too. Not to mention a good laugh, if you come across that cheeky carrot…
What we are calling for
- We need to get rid of the current classification system and allow farmers to sell all their good-quality produce. Then, logically, prices should come down, making it easier for everyone to give the family their five-a-day of seasonal fruit and veg. With food inflation predicted to soar by up to 9 per cent in the run-up to Christmas and all of us feeling the pinch, that would be good news. We, the shopping public, should be allowed to judge what constitutes ‘perfect’. We’re clever enough to choose smaller apples, or the peppers that are unusual but beautiful.
- While we’re waiting for the classification system to change, we all need to get to the shops and buy the produce marked Class II or ‘for cooking’.
- We need to write to our MEPs asking the European Parliament to ditch this grading system and allow the sale of all fruit and veg, without labelling knobbly produce as second-best. Click here for our template, which you can download then send to your MEP.