Oddball 'Nature's Grade' produce finally reaches Australia

Wonky or imperfect produce is finally getting a look in in Australia, thanks to a business venture called Spade and Barrow, a few simple commercial lines in Woolworths supermarkets and following some mega star campaigning overseas by the likes of French supermarket Intermarche and UK chef Jamie Oliver, co promoting odd produce with ASDA. 

 

“I think they’ve [Woolworths], minimized it and put this produce on sale because of public pressure. “From what I’ve seen they haven’t allocated much marketing spend on advertising the advantages of purchasing fruit & veg in all shapes and sizes,’ says Katy Barfield of the Woolworths effort. Ms Barfield is CEO of Spade and Barrow, a wholesale business which supplies produce, including wonky or as she calls it 'Natures Grade’ produce, to restaurants direct and to consumers via Aussie Farmers Direct. 

 

According to a statement Woolworths is looking to ‘show customers that this food is still delicious and healthy, as well as help farmers to sell more of these crops,” however Ms Barfield has her reservations in the early days of the ‘odd bunch’ campaign. “There remains a question mark over their motivation, but the more awareness we can bring to food waste the better,” she says. According to her statistics from a Tedx talk she delivered in Canberra in October, she says that one quarter of the world’s water supply is used to grow the billion tonnes of food that no one ends up eating. “The public have purchased perfect produce because that’s what has been made available, but as soon as you actually talk to people about the challenges facing our farmers we’ve found that people choose the Natures Grade produce over the regular produce,” she adds. “Environmentally it prevents good food going into land fill, ethically it is helping support our farmers to stay on the land by paying him a fair price for all of his crop and economically you’re saving money. It’s a win-win-win.”

 

The biggest problem facing Spade and Barrow in terms of supplying Natures Grade produce is that it needs to get bigger, so that it can take more of what farmers have to offer, Ms Barfield says. She recently had to watch 17 tonnes of Kipfler potatoes go to waste from one grower because she only had the capacity to take 3 tonnes. “We’d love to have bought it all,” she adds.