We are Jan and Anahi of Perfekto (https://www.perfekto.mx/). We offer imperfect produce in Latin America, helping to reduce food waste as otherwise the food would be thrown away. We offer a subscription box, delivered to your doorstep.
We started with fruits and veggies as 54% of them are wasted in Latin America, mainly due to two reasons: strict industry standards around aesthetics (too ugly, too small, too big, bruised, etc.) and inefficient supply chains (supply and demand mismatch, several intermediaries, no cold chains etc.). Meanwhile 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions result from food waste, and food demand is growing significantly.
I was working for a Swiss FinTech in Mexico City, but was not happy. I wanted to build something with a positive, sustainable impact. The food waste problem popped into my mind because growing up in a Swiss farming village and having worked as a waiter during my studies, I saw the effort in producing food and the amount of food we waste daily. I also realized there were not many people addressing the problem in Latin America. Further research showed that more than 1/3 of food in the region is being wasted. During that process I met Anahí, who started her career at Unilever and the past few years at Uber, where she led Grocery and Cornershop initiatives. Her father is a citrus producer so she was confronted with the problem of food waste pretty much her entire life and also wanted to do something about it.
We buy fruits and veggies from producers that otherwise are difficult or impossible for them to sell - the only standard is that they have to be fresh. We thereby create a market for these 'overlooked' products. Producers are not even offering imperfect products anymore because they think there is no market for it. When we approach them wanting to buy imperfect products they are surprised and distrust us. It takes some time for them to open up. Meanwhile, at least in Latin America, many people don't seem to know that this problem even exists. They don't know that so much food is being wasted for stupid reasons like shape or size and it blows their mind.
By sourcing our products directly from producers we shorten the supply chain. We maintain a cool temperature, which leads to less waste. We only buy seasonal and local produce to be as sustainable as possible. Thanks to the subscription model, we can match supply and demand to avoid over-buying stock that ends up wasted. This allows us to optimize logistics. Logistics is definitely the most complex thing about our business--it affects us across the board. For now we think we have figured out a good model to grow, but it will be interesting to see what happens and what will change as we become bigger!
First off, congrats for tackling a problem like this!
I'm wondering if there isn't also a big opportunity in selling this imperfect produce to food factories? Consumers have to be on board with big/small/misshapen veggies, but if I'm buying a strawberry jam, where the strawberries were chopped up in a factory, then it really doesn't matter what shape they had originally. Frankly, I'm kinda surprised if an obvious optimization like that isn't already in place - let those who care about the shape pay more for the pretty ones, and let those who don't save by buying the rest. But I'm guessing the existing supply chains that you are bypassing just isn't very conducive to that sort of thing?
Thanks! And love your thinking. To be frank, we have not had the chance to get enough insights on how strong the 'beauty standards' are in food factories. We know from one local chips maker that they do get potatoes that are too small for them and hence cannot be made use of. So it depends on the type of food product we talk about, but defenitely the standards in the food factories are lower than in the B2C space. We actually think we can start creating products like jam ourselves with fruits that are so mistreated that we cannot even include them in our produce boxes.
That said, the problem is also a bit educational. 1) many people don't know that imperfect produce is actually very common (as in supermarkets only perfect fruits&veggies are displayed) 2) some people think that imperfect produce is imperfect as they were genetically modified (which is not the case).
And lastly, the problem is also due to the existing supply chains. Supermarkets do not only optimize for looks but also size, for logistical and pricing purposes.
Apart from that, we do not only tackle food waste by offering imperfect produce but further only offering seasonal produce and shortening the existing supply chains.
> Frankly, I'm kinda surprised if an obvious optimization like that isn't already in place - let those who care about the shape pay more for the pretty ones, and let those who don't save by buying the rest.
Oh but that's exactly how it already works in existing supply chains: "imperfect" produce gets allocated quite well with food manufacturers, restaurants and food halls, or gets donated to foster homes, hospitals, etc. And many supermarkets do in fact stock up with "imperfect" produce.
"Reducing food waste" makes for good marketing. Except it's not that true.
Thanks, very good point. Important to take into consideration though that we are operating in Mexico and aiming for the LatAm market where this looks different than in the U.S. or Europe where most food waste indeed happens at the consumer level. Contrary in Latin America, 72% of food waste occurs prior to the consumption stage and specifically talking about fruits and veggies 54% are wasted due to supply chain inefficiencies and imperfections. And that already considers the fact that some imperfect produce ends up with food factories etc.
Let me shed some more light on the situation in Mexico (and most of LatAm):
Certainly, imperfect produce is allocated to some extent to food manufacturers, restaurants, etc. - but not enough - the scale of the problem is just too big.
Surprisingly, we found that even certain restaurants that wanted to source from us because they don't care about imperfect produce, ended up asking for standards around size or colour.
Another example is what my co-founder's father still lives daily - his limes or mandarines are wasted because of being too small, too big, miscoloured.
In Mexico, we have not seen any supermarket stocking up imperfect produce, not even the very forward-thinking ones, but agree that luckily this is happening in the U.S., Europe and other places, hopefully soon also here.
When it comes to donations, unfortunately less than 5% of food waste ends up with food banks. There is still much to be done on that front too.
We also talked to several farmers who tell us they have imperfect produce on their farm which they do not even pick because they know it will be hard for them to sell and so it's not worth for them to pay someone to pick it.
What is true though is that to leave an important mark we need to get scale.
