Would You Eat This Apple?

Dina Pfeffer

Eat Ugly Cambridge

Kenzie Morris and 2 OthersDina Pfeffer
Lauren Yung

Kenzie:
Eat Ugly is a campaign modeled on the body positivity campaign. This campaign aims to reduce food waste by raising awareness of all the produce thrown away for aesthetic reasons: 50% before it reaches stores. Eat Ugly challenges the idea of normative standards of beauty for food and humans. The hope is to change the societal pattern of picking fruits based on aesthetics. Eat Ugly's main goal is to encourage people to recognize that "ugly" produce still tastes good. Eat Ugly Campaign targets consumers with stickers and posters because once companies know that people will buy "ugly" produce, companies will buy it from farmers and stop wasting this produce. 

During open innovation, Eat Ugly has developed a cart that visits farmers markets in the Boston area. This cart is an interactive way to reach the community and further our social campaign. There was a lot of positive feedback from locals in the cambridge area about Eat Ugly, so the goal is to expand and spread awareness to places around Boston.With its vibrant, recognizable logos and posters, Eat Ugly strives to inspire self-reflection in the food industry and in consumers, in the hope of changing people's habits and ideas, so that they learn to value taste and nutrition above appearance in food. The cart also gives out samples of ugly fruit so that consumers will realize that it tastes the same. The cart conveys ugly fruit and personifies it with a runway for ugly fruit to go on. The hope is that consumers will see the cart and engage and take photos. 

Dina:
Eat Ugly Cambridge tackles the enormous amount of perfectly tasty produce that is thrown away each year based on superficial abnormalities. The campaign engages locals through social media and appearances at farmers markets. The members of Eat Ugly take a booth to market that is specially designed to be brought on the subway. This booth consists of three wooden crates that are used for storage during transport and then stacked and tied together at the market. A detachable table-top is then fastened into place. A canvas tablecloth decorated with the campaign logo, the words “Eat Ugly” in a watercolor-inspired type, and friendly fruit and vegetables is laid on the table. Several items are set out to catch the market patrons’ eyes, including quarter-page flyers and Eat Ugly stickers. The main attraction is a runway designed for fruit, complete with LED “stage lights” and a glittering gold curtain. When people visit the booth, they are invited to take a picture of their ugly market-purchased produce on the runway and post it on social media using our hashtag. Additionally, customers can sample slices of fresh fruit. The hidden twist: the fruit they are tasting is ugly! The purpose of the setup is to introduce as many people as possible to the positive environmental impact of eating ugly.

Lauren:
A social campaign aimed to eliminate food waste by embracing produce of all shapes and sizes and eating misshapen produce.

Almost 50% of produce is thrown away before reaching the food markets because of blemishes or being misshapen. For example, two apples that have grown and morphed into one apple is considered an ugly fruit. Many distributors would discard it, believing that it would not sell. Consumers are less likely to buy a weird-looking carrot because they fear that it might be "defective" or rotten.

Eat Ugly Cambridge is a movement that hopes to dispel this misconception by targeting consumers through handing out stickers, posting fliers, and bringing an interactive and educational cart to the local farmers' markets throughout Boston. An important component of the cart is a fashion runway, similar to those in beauty pageants, that is designed to glorify and promote "produce body positivity". Consumers can place their ugly produce on the runway and take pictures of it as a proud shoutout to the beauty of ugly produce. Taste tests will be conducted to demonstrate that no matter the shape, all produce still taste the same. The public will be offered slices of ugly fruit to promote the fact that despite its grotesque appearance, it's still safe to consume and tastes good. This campaign hopes to impact society's view on ugly produce. By inspiring consumers to be more inclusive and less picky about the appearance of their produce, suppliers will no longer have to throw away pounds and pounds of tasty, nutritious produce.