Why Buying Ugly Produce is so important to our planet!

by Sarah Phillips, CEO and founder, Ugly Produce is Beautiful

One of the simplest things you can do to help our planet is to buy and use ugly produce. Every pound grown represents a sizable investment of energy, water, natural, and human resources. Let's not waste it.

One of the many important steps we at Ugly Produce is Beautiful are doing this summer to combat ugly produce food waste is to partner with Local Roots NYC to offer what we call our OUR FARMER SHARE: CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farmer Share for sale in New York City at all of the Local Roots NYC locations. Information about ugly produce, plus recipes, will be posted at all locations.

​This important CSA Farmer Share Ugly Produce program will commence in mid-July, and we will make an announcement.

​Much of ugly produce is thrown away because it is rejected by our market system that chooses perfect produce for sale. Ugly produce is a huge part of our growing food waste system: 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten which is the equivalent of $165 billion dollars.

A great part of this uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills as the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste where it accounts for a large portion of U.S. methane emissions. Methane is a gas that has 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Methane absorbs the heat of the sun, further warming the atmosphere.

​Join UPIB and follow @UglyProduceIsBeautiful on Instagram.

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