Strategies to improve sales of imperfect carrots

Date:
December 2, 2021
Source:
Ohio State University
Summary:
Explaining the value of misshapen vegetables -- that they are as
healthful as their picture-perfect counterparts and buying them
helps reduce food waste -- could help improve sales of 'ugly'
produce, new research suggests.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Explaining the value of misshapen vegetables -- that they are as
healthful as their picture-perfect counterparts and buying them helps
reduce food waste - - could help improve sales of "ugly" produce, new
research suggests.


==========================================================================
The study measured consumers' responses to hypothetical shopping scenarios
for carrots. Participants were most open to buying bunches containing
imperfect carrots after being presented with both of those marketing
messages promoting ugly carrots' personal and societal benefits. Either
message alone was not effective at convincing consumers to buy misfit
carrots.

Findings also showed that respondents were willing to pay, with a
small discount, for some level of mixed bunches containing both ugly
and standard carrots, maxing out at 40% of misshapen carrots -- a sign
to regulators who set the tolerance level for cosmetic standards that
such a practice could be profitable.

One 2018 study in North Carolina suggested that about 41% of unharvested
food is edible but unmarketable because of its appearance. The researchers
are assessing ways to "win" with ugly foods in the marketplace by testing consumer acceptance of imperfect foods that don't come with a built-in
discount -- a tactic used by some brick-and-mortar and online retailers
that hasn't had much staying power.

"Any time you codify that cosmetically imperfect produce is somehow
lesser, you're stuck selling it for less and therefore you undermine the
entire value chain," said senior study author Brian Roe, professor in
the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics
at The Ohio State University.

"We see that once you promote it as being more natural and as reducing
wasted food, the discount is less than it otherwise would be -- but there
is also a cluster of folks who are actually willing to pay as much or
more because they value reducing food waste and they value the fact that
it's got just as much nutrition as standard produce." Roe conducted
the study with Danyi Qi and Jerrod Penn of Louisiana State University
and Ran Li, an Ohio State PhD student. The research is published online
ahead of print in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services.



==========================================================================
The researchers surveyed 1,300 U.S. residents who shopped and cooked for
their households. Participants in the online survey were randomly assigned
to receive one or a combination of two marketing messages: ugly carrots' nutritional quality equals that of blemish-free produce, and there are
social costs linked to throwing away food with cosmetic flaws.

Participants also selected from images of their preferred 2-pound carrot bunches and price points, with six bunches -- either with or without
their greenery attached -- containing 0% to 100% ugly carrots and prices ranging from $2.18 to $1.39 per pound. In another choice test, consumers
could select from just two options, a bunch of all standard carrots or all imperfect carrots with or without green leaves attached, in a hypothetical purchase from either a farmers market or a conventional grocery store.

Participants consistently disliked bunches that included any ugly
carrots at all, and the amount they were willing to pay for any number
of imperfect carrots was always lower than what they'd pay for 100%
standard carrots.

But a top contender in terms of profitability for farmers did emerge from
the analysis of participant responses: bunches containing 40% ugly carrots
and 60% standard carrots with green leaves attached sold at farmers
markets where consumers are exposed to the combined marketing messages.

"If you're at a farmers market, you're thinking more holistically,
you're not thinking about cosmetic perfection. You expect things to
be more 'real,'" Roe said. "So I think then people realize this is
what we might expect if we're getting produce directly from a farmer --
there's more room for imperfection because it's probably not interpreted
as imperfection. It's interpreted as naturalness." The research team
analyzed the tipping point in consumer willingness to pay that could
make harvesting ugly carrots profitable -- an important calculation for
farmers who need a positive return on their investment into planting,
picking and shipping their crops. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
also has a say in the percentage of non-standard produce that can be
sent to market -- a limit that may need to be revisited, Roe said.

"We hope these findings will change the viewpoint of the industry. If you
want to move into the ugly produce space, you probably need to rebrand
it rather than locking in a discount and saying, 'This is ugly food
that should be worth less, so let's just lock it in as being an inferior
good from the get-go," he said. "There hasn't been a lot of rethinking
of standards in light of food waste, so that would be one policy lever
that could be re-examined to deal with food waste in the modern era."
This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and
Agriculture, Ohio State University's Van Buren Fund and the LSU AgCenter.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Ohio_State_University. Original
written by Emily Caldwell. Note: Content may be edited for style and
length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Danyi Qi, Jerrod Penn, Ran Li, Brian E. Roe. Winning ugly: Profit
maximizing marketing strategies for ugly foods. Journal
of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2022; 64: 102834 DOI:
10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102834 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211202113442.htm

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