Young Reporters for the Environment
The Ugly Truth About Pretty Produce
by Faye Delaney & Caoife Keating Walkin
You might not believe it, but last year millions of Irish apples never even left the orchard. Not because they were rotten. They were turned down because they weren’t “pretty” enough to meet supermarket standards. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (O’Brien, 2025), in 2023 Ireland wasted 835,000 tonnes of food. Discrimination against food based on appearance happens throughout the food production process and is a major factor in creating food waste. We will discuss how a producer, an Irish retailer and a supermarket chain prevent food waste. We will also investigate what kind of attitude our peers have towards food waste and methods to prevent it. We spoke with was the Irish producer The Apple Farm, based in Cahir, Co. Tipperary. We also interviewed the Irish retailer Rívesci, based in Clonmel. Finally, we spoke with the international supermarket chain, Lidl.
The Apple Farm, Cahir is an example of an organic producer in the food supply chain. The owner and managing directorof the company, Cornelius Traas introduces us to the numerous by-products their company has to limit food waste. According to (Traas,2025), produce considered “Class 1 has minor defects”, which a blemish of “less than ½ cm ²” for the apple to be defined as class one “50% of the apples skin must be red” if it is any less then it is considered for class 2. “Class 2 is the minimum class that you are allowed to sell”, they “form more physical defects...of 2cm ²”. While previously selling their lower-grade apples to the Irish cider company Bulmer's, the apple farm has now started making their own by-products. The Apple Farm hasinnovated a range of solutions toassist in reducing food waste.Their apples go through a range ofdifferent stages of by-product production depending on the level of damage. If the apple has minimal damage, it will be repurposedfor juice, but if the apple is too damaged, it will be considered for cider vinegar, Trass further explained apples thatdon’t have enough red colour on their skin “where peeledand make into dried apple slices”. It is clear a range of solutions being considered.
In an interview with Irish business Rívesci, Co-Founder and Director Shannon Forrest.Highlighted how reducing food waste “is of the utmost importance”. Forrest noted the fact that they are “current members of the Food Waste Charter of Ireland”. Rather than allowing ingredients go to waste, they donate produce received from their suppliers that are nearing their expiration date to their local soup kitchen, where it is immediately utilised, effectively turning potential waste into community meals. As well as their production of condiments using organic produce, Rívesci has a coffee shop. When the coffee grounds are in surplus, they donate the grounds to the Clonmel Tidy Towns so theycan be used as fertiliser. This is an effective method which reduces food waste along with benefitting the local community.
We contacted the supermarket chain Lidl in relation to their response to the “ugly food” crisis. As part of their approach to tackle this escalating problem, Lidl's “Green Leaders” have implemented “Waste Not” boxes. These are a range of boxes containing a mix of misshapen fruit and vegetables. As Lidl has acknowledged “Food shouldn’t be wasted just because of damaged packaging or slight visual imperfections”. These boxes are sold for just €3. Since they have been launched, they have reduced food waste by more than 1.1 million kg across Ireland. In addition to this, “when food is nearing the end of its shelf life” Lidl’sspokesperson explained, “but is still perfectly good to eat, we encourage customers to buy it through price reductions.”.This benefits not only the business in terms of profit increase, due to more produce being sold, but it provides an alternative to food loss that would otherwise end up in the compost bin.According to (Ireland’s Forecourt and Convenience Retailer, 2023)“Lidl has channelled more than 4 million meals to more than 350 charities through its partnership with Foodcloud”FoodCloud is a social enterprise that aims to allocates excess food form supermarkets to people who need it the most.Lidl has shown a committed to reducing their food waste created by aesthetic standards, in their resourceful food wate reduction methods.
We conducted a survey in our school across all years,and asked our peers a series of questions, to see how appearance affects consumer choice. When asked if they would buy discounted “ugly” produce, 68% responded with yes. Although more than half choose to take the produce, this identifies that there is a selection of consumers who judge the produce based on how appetising they look.Surprisingly 22% of responses agreed with the statement that “the more perfect the produce looks the better it tastes” 47.4% disagreed while 29.7% were unsure, this reveals that when choosing their organic produce, this group of consumers has little consideration of the unesthetic produce, this hence has an effect of the volume of produce wasted. When asked what they do with food that isn’t appetising but is still safe to eat,71% said they would still eat it, there were a range of other answers from repurpose the food into other goods to students’ suggestingfeeding it to pets and share it with family members.This proves to us that the targeted group are aware of affordable solutions to food, that allows consumers to get their value’s worth, but there is a lack of emphasis of how theappearance is a considerable factor increasing the volume of food wasted each year.
Through our extensive research, we have reached the conclusion that a large quantity of organic produce faces discrimination due to their appearance. However, it is evident there is a strong movement in reducing the impact. This is clear in the different company’s efforts to tackle the issue with use of multiple resourceful solutions. We believe that if consumers were educated about the impact that food waste has and taught how to prevent it, this would reduce the quantity of food wasted. We suggest that videos played at schools educating students of the impact small choices have on the organic produce life cycle.
Apple Farm- (Cornelius Traas, 2025)
Rívesci- (Shannon Forrest, 2025)
Survey- (Ursuline Secondary School Students, 2026)
Image1-Rívesci (Keating-Walkin, 2026)
Image2-apples (Delaney, 2026)