We launch an occasional series we are calling "Food, Glorious Food,"
reports about what we eat, how our food is grown,
and the economics of putting a meal on the table.
Tonight we begin with food waste.
Much of what is grown on American farms never gets to market.
Allison Aubrey, of National Public Radio, has our report.
This story is part The News Hour's ongoing collaboration with NPR.
(sprinklers spraying)
♪ Latino music ♪
(Allison Aubrey) In Salinas Valley, California, it's a symphony of sound
as the growing season gets underway.
This fertile strip produces 70% of our leafy greens.
It's been dubbed "The Salad Bowl of America."
But not everything grown here makes it to our plates.
In fact, some of it never leaves Salinas.
At the local solid-waste dump,
Operations Manager Cesar Zuniga watches as trucks roll in, every day,
to dump produce destined for a nearby landfill.
We got a whole load, pretty much, of loose organic lettuce.
We've got spinach towards the back.
It looks like it's perfectly fine, nothing wrong with it.
We've got some kale here.
We've got broccoli in the back, as well.
We have plenty of produce to make a salad here.
(Allison) The greens in this landfill are from local farms,
and sometimes they end up here
because something goes wrong during the packaging process.
Another reason perfectly good food gets wasted?
Peter Lehner, from the Natural Resources Defense Council explains.
Right now, food that isn't sold to your best buyer
is often dumped in the landfill.
The prices for fresh fruits and vegetables
can go up and down quite a bit,
and farmers may plant thinking they'll get one price,
but by the time harvest comes around there's another price,
and it's not even worth it for them to get to the market.
(Allison) A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council says
that as much as 40% of all the food
produced in the United States never gets eaten.
The idea that almost half of our food is wasted is crazy.
(Allison) That waste occurs at every point along the food chain.
Some is lost in transport and during food processing.
Supermarkets and we the consumers end up tossing out a lot too.
But what about what's lost on the farm?
An NRDC report found that anywhere from 1% to 30% of farmers' crops
don't make it to market.
We toured Ocean Mist Farms with Art Barrientos to find out why.
This cauliflower here, you see how it has that yellow tinge to it?
- Mmhm. - This is not marketable.
- Just because the color is a bit off? - Because it's yellow.
This will not be packed.
It's got to be every bit as nutritious
as the white cauliflower down here in the field.
What's wrong with it?
There isn't anything wrong with it. Let me cut a...
- Grab that floret. - Okay, yes.
It's crunchy. It's tasty.
Tastes like any cauliflower I've ever had.
So are we just shopping with our eyeballs,
and forgetting all about our tastebuds?
Absolutely. As consumers, we want white cauliflower.
That's what we expect from our grocer.
As a result, it gets incorporated back into the ground.
We won't harvest it.
So what's another issue
that might ding something out of the marketplace?
(Art) Size. Size is critical.
This cauliflower here is just too big.
(Allison) So you have to meet these very specific size stipulations?
Yes, and this is too big.
(Allison) It's really kind of shocking to me.
Well... yes, it can be.
(Allison) Size matters because retailers demand uniformity.
When everything is stacked up nicely, it makes for better eye candy,
like this perfect leaf-sized cauliflower that is being wrapped up,
destined for the produce isle.
The yellow rejects,
and heads deemed too big or too small,
are left behind in the field to be plowed under.
And if you think broccoli and cauliflower have a tough time making the grade,
check out these peaches!
(Chris Holland) If you look at this peach, the fruit all the way around.
There's no blemishes to it.
It's got red color with a yellow blush background.
That's going to go to our premium box, the high-end retail.
And this one here has got green on it, so this would definitely go in a #2.
We wouldn't put this in a premium box.
(video scrubbing sound)
(Allison) Wait. Back that up! Premium grade? Seconds?
Wouldn't you buy those seconds?
And the ones that don't even rate as a #1 or #2?
Dumped into this truck.
(Chris) This truck here is our final throwing out, going to the cattle feed.
(truck passing)
So think of everything it takes to grow these crops;
the water, the fertilizer, the fuel to run the tractor.
But ultimately if these crops don't measure up to standards,
they're just plowed under here in the field,
and all that energy is wasted.
80% percent of our water, 10% of our energy,
40% of our land is used to grow our food.
(Allison) And when it ends up in a landfill, Lehner says,
there's another problem.
(Peter) Now, food is the largest material in our landfills.
Of all the things that are in our dumps, the biggest portion is food.
And when it rots in a landfill, it emits methane,
which is a very potent greenhouse gas,
30 or 100 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
(Allison) But there are some solutions on the horizon.
Ocean Mist and HMC Farms donate some of their less-than-perfect produce
to the California food banks.
Last year, Ocean Mist sent nearly 400,000 lbs. of broccoli and cauliflower,
and some of it ends up here, at this warehouse in San Francisco.
It can store seven square miles of produce.
Paul Ash oversees the operation.
He says in the last decade, the California Association of Food Banks
has doubled the amount of produce it distributes.
(Paul Ash) This year, we hope to grow the California Farm-to-Family Program
by over 70 million pounds.
And part of that will mean more produce for California food banks.
But we hope part of it also means that we're going to be able
to push this eastward, to other food banks.
(Allison) The Food Bank's Farm-to-Family Program
has tried to recruit more growers who pack in the field
to do what Ocean Mist does.
They separate out the seconds, and pack it in these black crates
headed for the food bank.
The premium heads get packed in the Ocean Mist boxes,
headed for retailers.
It's a simple process,
but only 3 out of 25 broccoli and cauliflower growers
in the state participate.
Harold McClarty, of HMC Farms says he'd like to donate
more of his peaches to the food banks, but...
Getting it into the hands of somebody to eat it isn't free.
There's got to be an economic incentive to move more of this
into an avenue that food banks could take advantage of.
It's a lot easier and cheaper just to basically throw it away.
(Allison) The State of California does offer farmers tax credits
to donate produce,
but Ash says the food banks are lobbying for bigger deductions.
There are only six other states besides California
that give tax breaks to growers for donating food.
Fifty million Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from.
We, meanwhile, are wasting all this food.
If we cut our food waste even by a third,
there would be enough food for all those people who don't know
where their next meal is coming from, to be fully fed.
(Allison) As food banks work to expand their programs,
some entrepreneurs say there are so many seconds to go around,
they see a whole new business model,
much like what a French supermarket did last year.
(commercial) So we launch "les fruits & légumes moches,"
starring the grotesque apple,
the ridiculous potato,
(Allison) And it worked.
(commercial) Our new kind of fruits and vegetables were an immediate success.
We faced only one problem-- being sold out.
(Allison) Here in the U.S., entrepreneur Ben Simon and two partners
are betting they can turn Americans onto less-than-perfect produce.
We're working hard right now to launch a new venture
called "Imperfect."
You get a box of seasonal, ugly produce delivered to your door every week.
And because this produce looks a little funky on the outside,
you get it for 30-50% less than what it costs--
(Allison) Imperfect plans to start delivery in the San Francisco area
sometime this summer, and they've just signed a deal
with a high-end grocery chain called Raley's,
which has more than 100 stores in California and Nevada.
Here's Raley's Megan Burritt.
(Megan) When they're picking up that apple,
we need to somehow tell them that story,
whether it's, "These are the underdog apples!
Who doesn't love an underdog story?!" Or something like that.
(Allison) Will Americans embrace these misfits
as easily as the Europeans have?
Raley's is betting they will.
(truckers talking)
And, back in Salinas, Cesar Zuniga is anticipating traffic will pick up
as the growing season hits full swing.
For the PBS Newshour, I'm Allison Aubrey of NPR News,
in Salinas Valley.