【聯合報╱By RAPHAEL MINDER╱陳世欽譯】
Buying Ugly Fruit To Limit Food Waste
LISBON — Isabel Soares carefully select ed her fruits and vegetables one recent day. She picked up some spinach whose leaves had turned yellow. Then some tomatoes whose skin had been damaged by sunburn and insect bites. Finally, she set on some zucchini that had grown so large and deformed that they curved almost into a doughnut shape. They were perfect for her.
At a time of lingering economic hardship for many in the European Union, whose penchant for regulation has extended even to the shape, size and color of the foods its citizens eat, Ms. Soares has bet that there is a market for fruits and vegetables deemed too ugly by government bureaucrats, supermarkets and other retailers to sell .
About seven months ago, she and a handful of volunteers started a cooperative called Fruta Feia, or Ugly Fruit . It has taken off with hard-pressed consumers, won applause from advocates outraged by Europe’s skyrocketing food waste, and provided a backhanded slap to European Union rule makers. In its own way, it has quietly subverted notions of what is beautiful, or at least edible.
“The E.U. norms are based on the mistaken idea that quality is about appearance,” said Ms. Soares, 31, who formerly worked in Barcelona as a renewable energy consultant.
Europe wastes 89 million tons of food a year, according to a study by the Dutch and Swedish governments, which called on the European Union “to reduce the amount of food waste caused by the labeling system.”
Ms. Soares estimates that a third of Portugal’s farming produce goes to waste because of the standards set by supermarkets and their consumers. She says the waste is a n example of misplaced intervention by the European Union .
Europe’s food rules have long fueled anti-European sentiment, particularly in Britain, where tabloid newspapers ridiculed Brussels bureaucrats for supposedly trying to ban “bent bananas” or “curved cucumbers.” The European Commission decided six years ago to cut back its list of marketing rules for produce to 10 from 36.
For products like tomatoes, which remain on the list, the European legislation sets minimum requirements, including that the tomatoes arrive “clean, practically free of any visible foreign matter” and “fresh in appearance.” The law then places them into three classes, including a lower one that allows for defects. Supermarkets, however, generally opt for a class that permits only “a slight defect in shape and development” of the tomatoes.
Ms. Soares said she could sell her food without contravening European Union legislation because Europe’s marketing rules apply only to food that is labeled or packaged, which is not the case with what goes into her crates.
Fruta Feia has built a waiting list of 1,000 customers, and has sold 21 tons of food at two distribution centers in Lisbon since its inception. The association has 420 registered customers, who pay a $6.81 membership fee on top of the cost of their weekly food crate, which is $4.77 for a crate containing more than three kilograms of fruits and vegetables.
At first, Ms. Soares said, she struggled to persuade farmers to sell her their unwanted food. “I think some suspected that I was an undercover sanitary inspector,” she recalled.
Now , she gets a warm embrace from Paulo Dias, who runs a family farm in Cambaia, about 72 kilometers from Lisbon, that supplies Sonae, one of Portugal’s largest supermarket companies. The farm covers about 7.5 hectares .
Of his annual output of about 900 kilograms of tomatoes, Mr. Dias said a quarter do not meet Sonae’s standards and are dumped. Fruta Feia buys the unwanted food at about half the price at which producers sell it to supermarkets. Mr. Dias said , “It also makes me feel good to know my tomatoes aren’t wasted and that people who perhaps have little money get to eat something that is just as good as if they could afford the supermarket.”
José Manuel Santos, a farmer outside the town of Mafra, estimated half of his spinach harvest would be thrown away this year because abrupt weather changes had helped turn the leaves yellow.
“The market has decided that spinach absolutely needs to be green, so I’m having to throw out spinach that is of the same quality,” he said.
At a time of austerity and 15 percent unemployment in Portugal, Fruta Feia has attracted customers because of its low pricing, but most customers said they wanted to support local agriculture while reducing waste.
As her last customers were leaving, Ms. Soares checked if any fruit remained in the crates where volunteers put surplus food, which customers are encouraged to take free. “Of course, nothing can go to waste here .”
中譯
最近某日，伊莎貝兒‧索芮斯在小心翼翼挑選她的水果與蔬菜。她拿起一些葉已變黃的菠菜，接著是外皮因日曬蟲咬而受損的番茄，最後是一些長得太大變形幾乎捲成甜甜圈狀的美洲南瓜。
對她來說，它們很完美。
歐盟無所不管，連食物的外形、大小與顏色都不放過。在許多人仍未擺脫經濟困頓之際，索芮斯料定政府官員、超市與零售商認為醜到無法販售的蔬果必有市場。
約七個月前，她與幾名志工合創「醜水果」合作社，旋即受到手頭拮据的消費者歡迎，並獲不滿歐洲食物浪費嚴重的活躍人士肯定，同時賞了歐盟主管當局一巴掌。它以自己的方法悄悄顛覆了「美觀」，或至少「可食用」的概念。
31歲的索芮斯原在巴塞隆納擔任再生能源顧問。她說：「歐盟的規範以外觀即品質的錯誤觀念為基礎。」
荷蘭與瑞典政府統計，歐洲每年棄置8900萬噸食物，呼籲歐盟當局「減少標示系統造成的浪費」。
索芮斯估計葡葡牙約1/3農產品因為超市及消費者設定的標準而棄置，是歐盟不當干預的例證。
歐盟有關食物的規定早已引起反歐盟的情結，尤以英國為烈。英國各小報嘲諷歐盟官僚說，他們試圖禁止「彎曲的香蕉」或「有曲線的黃瓜」。歐盟執委會六年前決定將有關行銷的規定由36條減為10條。
對還受到規範的番茄等農產品而言，歐盟規定多項最低條件，包括番茄送達時，必須「保持乾淨、無任何可見異物」，以及「外觀新鮮」。依法它們分成三級，最低的一級允許一些瑕疵。不過超市通常只接受「外觀與生長狀況僅略有瑕疵」的番茄。
索芮斯說，她可以在不違反歐盟法規的情況下販售食物，因為歐盟的行銷法規僅適用於附有標籤或包裝的食物，而非她裝在條板箱內的食物。
「醜水果」已有1000名消費者在等待中，開張至今，已在里斯本的兩個分銷中心賣出21噸食物。它的登記消費者共420人，除每周以條板箱裝盛的食物成本，每個人另須繳交6.81美元的會費。這些食物每箱售價4.77美元，內有超過3公斤的蔬果。
索芮斯說，一開始她必須說服農民把不要的農產品賣給她。她說：「我覺得有些人可能認為我是暗中查訪的衛生官員。」
如今，她已經取得迪亞斯的信任與支持。迪亞斯在距里斯本約72公里的坎拜亞經營家庭農場，產品供應葡萄牙最大超市集團之一蘇納伊。農場面積約7.5公頃。
迪亞斯說，他每年約生產900公斤番茄。其中約1/4不符蘇納伊超市的標準，只能丟棄。
「醜水果」以超市收購價的一半買下這些不要的食物。迪亞斯說：「知道我的番茄並未浪費，又能讓手頭不寬裕的人吃到與超市一樣好的食物，我也很開心。」
馬福拉鎮外的農民桑托斯估量，他種的菠菜今年約有一半得丟棄，因為氣候驟變導致菜葉變黃。
他說：「市場認為菠菜必須絕對鮮綠。我只好丟棄那些品質相同的菠菜。」在葡萄牙撙節仍未結束，失業率仍然高達15%的局面下，「醜水果」以低價格吸引了一些消費者。不過多數消費者說，他們願意支持在地農業，同時減少浪費。
在最後幾個客人離開時，索芮斯檢查條板箱內是否還有志工放進去的多餘水果。這些食物歡迎消費者免費取用。她說：「當然，這裡不容許棄置任何食物。」
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