St. Louis joins the 'ugly produce' movement with record launch for Imperfect Produce

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ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Imperfect Produce packed a half dozen trucks filled with hundreds of boxes of oddly shaped, windburned and perfectly edible produce to St. Louis area customers for the first time, Tuesday. Their 2,000 customers in St. Louis was one of the biggest launch week this San Fransico based company has ever seen.

Imperfect Produce is set up in 40 cities around the U.S. They take the produce from farmers that grocery stores don't get, either because it's not physically appealing enough or a surplus, then sell it at a discount to customers across the country.

Weekly deliveries will be made in the St. Louis area. Just go online and create your custom order with 30-40 produce items that are listed online as available for that week. It's packaged and shipped right to your front door. The packages cost anywhere from $11 to $43, depending on the amounts and if you want organic or traditional produce. Shipping is a flat fee of $4.99 on each order.

Director of operations Neil Neufeld says between 30-33 percent of fruits and vegetables in the U.S. goes to waste because it's either not harvested or goes rotten. 

He described their record opening week in St. Louis to getting a "big hug" from the city.

"That's a big deal for us," Neufeld says. "It just shows us how many people in St. Louis care about stopping food waste and really that is doesn't matter the size and the shape of the produce."

Since 2015, Neufeld says they've recovered 40 million pounds of produce.

They've donated millions of pounds of food to local foodbanks around the U.S. and are working with Urban Harvest St. Louis.

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