"Ugly Produce. Delivered. Healthy, delicious fruits and veggies for about 30% less than grocery stores, delivered to your door." This is the Imperfect Produce motto — but what does that really mean?
Imperfect Produce attempts to reduce food waste, support local farmers, save customers money, and celebrate imperfections in produce. They take foods that are surplus or that have size or cosmetic imperfections and sell them for less than the grocery store cost. These are delivered in boxes right to your front door for the cities that the company has access to currently. Seattle and Tacoma are in their radius, so I decided to see what all the hype was about. Needless to say, I am keeping my subscription going. I'm just going to customize my box every week to get the most bang for my buck.
Maddy McKeever
The first box of produce you receive is half off, so my sister and I purchased a medium sized box. The sizes and prices available according to their site is:
Small Box: costs $11-13, weighs 7-9 lbs, serves 1-2 people
Medium Box: costs $14-16, weighs 11-13 lbs, serves 2-4 people
Large Box: costs $20-22, weighs 17-19 lbs, serves 4-6 people
Extra Large Box: costs $25-27, weighs 23-25 lbs, serves 6-10 people
They also give the option to have the boxes delivered either every week or every other week. The medium box ended up being more than enough produce for us every other week, so we are switching to a small box.
Maddy McKeever
The boxes also give you the option to customize your box each week a few days before it is delivered if you don't want a random mix. I chose for this because there are several foods I cannot eat. You are given options between fruits, veggies, organic produce, recipes, and more.
Maddy McKeever
Our first box came and was filled with some imperfections, but the majority of the produce was sent because it was either surplus or did not fit grocery store size requirements. For example, our avocados were very small and hard. In the future, I found that avocados are a better deal at the grocery store, but other produce was a much better deal through this subscription.
Maddy McKeever
Along with the produce we had selected, the box contained several fliers. One told about the company and goals of Imperfect Produce, one told to share images of your most imperfect products on social media, and one even showed how to store your produce for best shelf life.
Maddy McKeever
The produce was plentiful and delicious. The only imperfection in my fruits were one of my beets having a chunk out of one side because of growing malformed. Most of the non-bulk produce were comparable or less than the grocery store cost. Going forward, there are some foods I would definitely get in my boxes again and some that are not worth getting from here.
Below are some images of the produce I received in my first box:
Bok ChoyMaddy McKeever
ParsnipMaddy McKeever
PearMaddy McKeever
PomeloMaddy McKeever
BeetsMaddy McKeever
Things to get: citrus, leafy greens, herbs, small vegetables (like carrots and celery), and any produce you want to try and can't find at your local grocery store regularly (like a pomelo). It was wonderful discovering new foods, like the pomelo which tastes like a less-bitter grapefruit mixed with an orange. I found that you can get much better deals and a much larger quantity of herbs from this subscription. Not only that, but all of their foods (like carrots) seem to look more like what your grandma would grow and less like companies have mass produced them.
Thing to not get: Bulk items (like potatoes and onions), gourds, fruit that need to ripen (like pears and avocados), coffee, and anything you won't eat before your next box arrives. You can buy a bag of several pounds of potatoes for a much better deal than getting two big potatoes in your box each week. The same goes for avocados, which you can get for a better deal at your local grocery store if you are willing to make the trip. A lot of their fruits are delicious, but take a long time to ripen and tend to be very small. The same goes for their gourds.
Needless to say, if your zip code supports Imperfect Produce, I would sign up for them as soon as possible. Your stomach will thank you for it.
