WATCH THIS 2-MINUTE VIDEO FIRST: https://vimeo.com/98441820
I first came across the Ugly Fruits video by Intermarche, the 3rd largest supermarket chain in France. Their motivation was simple – don’t waste food. This was sparked by the European Union making 2014 the year against food waste. Their solution? Find out what food is wasted, and motivate people to “un-waste” them. This turned out to be the “ugly” fruits and vegetables in the supermarkets worldwide that get disposed of because people do not find them appealing enough to consume. By discounting these products and adding the message of fighting food waste, it became more than enough of an incentive for consumers to welcome the idea.
After watching this the first time I immediately asked myself, what else could follow the same model to fight food waste? It turns out that ugly cookies made that list! “Beyond their appearance these product will present “the same nutritional and taste qualities” according to the retailer. Intermarché chose the motto “moche, mais mate les tablettes” a play on word as in French it could either mean, “ugly but check out my chocolate bar” or, “ugly but check out my six pack”.” (source)
The statistics will blow people away at the impact of food waste and how economically it impacts third world countries by driving up the prices of food production beyond the affordable range for average families living there.
Global food waste is a true sustainability issue. And Intermarche made the right marketing play to address it. Innovative strategies that drive awareness but also benefit the companies behind the cause creates a win-win-win situation. It gets us to think what else can be done about food waste that follows the same idea Intermarche introduced.
I LOVE the ugly cookies! I’d heard of this campaign before, but didn’t know just how powerful the impact was ultimately for the supermarket, and didn’t realize that they’d expanded to packaged goods as well (which makes total sense, and I applaud Intermarché for that!)
In researching to find out more about the ugly produce/cookies, I was disappointed to find that these campaigns were only run over 2 or 3 days, and were pretty much one-off events. While it’s great that such a campaign was able to spark so much conversation about food waste, it makes me wonder why they decided to discontinue this movement, rather than embrace it fully into the business model?
I agree, I wanted to bring it up and ask why it didn’t continue. I think the discount idea is great because it’s not embraced by all, but embraced by enough especially with a major drop in price.