A new produce delivery service called Ungraded Produce will deliver “ugly” but high-quality local vegetables and fruit that are otherwise unable to be sold in grocery stores.

The produce delivery service was founded by two recent Duke graduates with the mission to address both the issues of food waste and hunger within the triangle.

“We source a lot of ‘ugly’ produce, the misshapen stuff from local farms, (and) we recover a lot of excess wholesale produce, particularly fruits,” said Courtney Bell, President and Co-founder of Ungraded Produce.

“Our main goal is to fight food waste mostly by sourcing local and then just challenging sort of the perception of what it means to eat healthy, local nutritious food.”

Courtney Bell spoke with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.

 

“Ugly” or misshapen produce that is considered unsellable to grocery stores but is otherwise in good shape will often times be left in fields or sent straight to landfills.

“We offer seven different products that are different sized fruit and vegetable combo boxes,” said Bell. “And then on our end what we do is we work with local farms and produce aggregators on a weekly basis to source the produce that they have.

“We are still small so we box it up ourselves, and then on the weekends we deliver it to people’s doorsteps.”

Bell says the idea came to them upon discovering that 50,000 people in Durham County alone are food insecure.

“We thought if we can source this product, not only would we be fighting food waste, but we can then get fresh produce to people at a lower price point,” said Bell.

According to Bell, what sets Ungraded Produce apart is their price point- that their high-quality products are about 30% to 50% cheaper than what costumers can find at Whole Foods or Harris Teeter.

“It’s always really funny when people approach us and they say, ‘I can’t believe this is considered ugly.’ It just kind of goes to show the extent of food waste in our system,” said Bell.

Ungraded Produce currently has 130 subscribers and plans on growing by hundreds more within the next year.

To sign up to receive your own “ugly” produce delivered to your door, or for more information, visit their website.

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