With the rise of Fairtrade, organic and ethically sourced fresh produce, it has never been easier to eat fruit and veg with a clean conscience – if, of course, you have enough money ‘to care’.
For too long organic produce has been the preserve of the well heeled, who can justify spending almost £2 on a pack of organic tomatoes, but if you don’t want to pay top dollar, it can be very hard to consume as sustainably as you might want to. One company that appears to have cracked this conundrum is Mitcham-based ‘wonky veg’ box scheme Oddbox, whose stated aim is to offer ‘affordable sustainability’.
“Particularly among young consumers there’s now a huge drive towards sustainability,” says co-founder Deepak Ravindran. “People are saying: ‘I want to know where my food comes from, I want to know if it’s been ethically sourced, I want to see a transparent supply chain,’ but this generation’s disposable income isn’t as high as the last’s. Shoppers want sustainable solutions but they don’t always want to be paying a premium.”
Offering small, medium and large veg (or mixed fruit and veg) boxes for between £8.99 and £17.25, depending on the size of your family, the company can legitimately claim to be levelling the playing field – a large box of organic fresh produce from Abel & Cole is £27.50. However, the benefits extend beyond the consumer– growers, and perhaps most importantly the environment, also benefit since the veg in the boxes is either ‘wonky’ or surplus. This means it may otherwise have been sent to landfill, ploughed into the ground, or sold at a fraction of its value for processing or animal feed.
War on waste
Although the extent of food waste in primary production is still unknown in the UK, food waste charity Wrap found that around 19 per cent of all lettuces were unharvested in 2015, with as much as 47 per cent of lettuce production wasted at some farms. When Oddbox began business, just over two years ago, on-farm waste was something that most consumers were unaware of, but now the problem is slowly starting to be exposed.
On-farm waste can occur for two main reasons: firstly, if the produce doesn’t match a retailer’s specifications on size, shape and colour, or secondly, if volumes exceed the producer’s programmes and can’t otherwise be sold. However, with so-called wonky veg now gaining traction at major retailers, as well as smaller grocers, the appetite for cheaper, visually imperfect produce is growing.
“Just like people, fruit and veg comes in different sizes, shapes and colours,” says Ravindran, “and there’s nothing wrong with that. We saw it as a great opportunity not only to launch a business, but also to tackle food waste in a direct way by working with farms to make the most of their crop.”
The idea for the business came when Ravindran was on holiday with the company’s chief executive, and his wife, Emilie Vanpoperinghe. While visiting street markets in Portugal, it struck them that, as in many other European countries, lots of the fruit and veg had visual imperfections but still tasted delicious. “On the flip side, we always wondered why the fruit and veg at the supermarket looked so nice but didn’t have the same taste – there was something lacking,” Ravindran adds.
Branching out
When the business started in May 2016 it only had a couple of suppliers and around 20 customers, all in south London. Initially Vanpoperinghe and Ravindran publicised the business through word of mouth and by distributing flyers door to door and at local fairs, but soon they refined their approach and started putting out Facebook adverts and email marketing. Just over two years later and the pair has begun deliveries in west London, with expansion plans in the east and north of the city in the coming months. “We want to cover the whole area within the M25 first and then replicate that in specific tier 2 cities,” says Vanpoperinghe. “We think that Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton have a lot of consumers that will be interested in Oddbox, but we don’t think it’ll work as well in rural areas.”
Looking further afield, the company is also considering the possibility of franchising its model and launching Oddbox on the continent. “There are definitely opportunities in mainland Europe because there’s plenty of surplus supply and, as yet, nothing like Oddbox to make the most of it.”
Picking up the slack
In this vein, one thing that’s central to the Oddbox business model is an acceptance that there’s always going to be slack in the supply chain. Forecasting difficulties and increasingly unpredictable weather conditions dictate that producers will often grow more than is ultimately needed to make sure they fulfil their programmes with retailers.
Fortunately, businesses like Oddbox, as well as major retailers and food redistribution charities, now ensure there is another channel for this additional produce – one that offers a fair return for growers. This gives suppliers an extra incentive to be sustainable beyond their environmental principles or concern for company image.
“It’s a win-win situation for our growers,” says Ravindran. “So many farmers are good at the agricultural process but don’t really know where to send their surpluses beyond the traditional channels. Yes there’s juicing, ciders and so on, but unless they have prior relationships or contracts with those processors, they don’t really know they exist. There really are opportunities out there and talking to producers and suppliers really opens up their line of thought.”
Beyond helping farmers and consumers to be more sustainable, the business also does its bit for charity, donating up to 10 per cent of the produce it rescues to food redistribution organisations. City Harvest comes to Oddbox HQ in Mitcham twice a week to collect fruit and veg, which is then redistributed to several soup kitchens and food banks.
“Sometimes our orders will change or we might have ordered a bit too much, but whatever’s remaining will be collected and used to make meals in soup kitchens,” says Vanpoperinghe. “This is important for us. We fight food waste; we don’t want to create any waste ourselves.”
