Ugly approach: Obsession with ‘aesthetic grading’ causes significant food loss, economic woe for farmers
Fruit and vegetable production has become increasingly reliant on scarce resources like water and soil. Unlike cereals, pulses and root crops, fruits and vegetables have significantly higher blue-water demands and carbon emissions. Efficient resource use, streamlined supply chains, and minimising food loss and waste are critical for sustainable fresh fruits and vegetables production, especially given their highly perishable nature.
A major issue in developing and emerging markets is that over half of fruits and vegetables are lost before they even reach consumers. In East and Southeast Asia, the supply chain is a main source of this waste, with losses occurring during storage (21%), transportation (8%), processing and packaging (12%), and on-farm post-harvest operations (5%).
One key driver of food loss is aesthetic grading, which either downgrades fruits and vegetables that do not meet specific appearance standard (size, shape or colour) for lower-value uses, or discards them altogether. In Belgium, two-thirds of horticulturists could not sell all their produce due to cosmetic grading standards, losing about 10% in sales on average.
In Spain, persimmon farmers lost 16% of their edible production thanks to appearance-based rejection at cooperative warehouses. In Germany, aesthetic rejection rates varied widely — a 2018 study reporting that 20% of fruits and vegetables were rejected for cosmetic reasons, with rates ranging from 2% to 40%. Another German study found that aesthetic grading led to a 32% loss of apples in, while 15% of the total harvest never met retail specifications.
Aesthetic standard application across the food supply chain has yet to be thoroughly examined, especially in the context of smallholder farmers in developing countries. Many studies have focused on improving storage and handling to reduce losses, without questioning the aesthetic standards that drive much of this waste.
While there is research on consumer preferences for visually perfect produce, there is almost no data on aesthetic grading’s impact on farm-level practices, particularly for smallholder farmers. At the same time, the lack of quantitative research on cosmetic grading’s economic impact (especially in emerging markets) leaves important questions unanswered.
Solutions — such as diverting rejected produce to alternative markets, social donations, or processing — could help mitigate these losses. However, the continued reliance on cosmetic standards across the food chain raises significant concerns about sustainability and equity in global food production.
Comparing apples to…apples
The current study, which examined fresh apple production in China — the world’s largest apple producer — found that 35% of apples in major production areas were graded based on characteristics like ripeness, colour, and appearance.
Moreover, these practices have resulted in 17.1% of apples being lost, primarily because they didn’t meet cosmetic standards. Perhaps more worryingly, this did not boost financial returns for smallholder farmers, either.
The practices involved in getting apples to achieve a “perfect” look are labour-intensive. They include using paper bags to shield growing apples from damage, and often increase farmers’ production costs. The study stated that direct procurement by supermarkets was depressing farm gate prices, since the added cost for aesthetic perfection would fall on farmers who were not adequately compensated for it.
This exacerbates existing challenges for farmers, who are already facing narrow profit margins. These added costs, the study revealed, amounted to about 20% of overall production expenses, without yielding higher market returns.
The study’s authors noted that the issue was widespread and detrimental, with farmers losing a substantial portion of their harvests without seeing higher prices for supposedly “aesthetically perfect” apples. As such, these findings highlighted the need for such grading practices to be reassessed in order to reverse and minimise food loss and waste.
Looks like looks aren’t everything
This research is critical as it sheds light on how private standards in the food supply chain, driven by consumer preferences and retail demands for visually perfect products, compound food waste. This is particularly concerning — according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates, global food loss among fruits and vegetables is already approximately 33%.
The study’s findings call into question the justification of aesthetic grading, especially in light of environmental concerns. In addition to lost produce, it noted that related activities like bagging apples and using reflective films also contributed to environmental impact, an aspect that had not been rigorously studied yet.
The researchers urged industry experts and food supply chain stakeholders to reconsider the stringent cosmetic standards that contribute to such losses. They stated that adjusting these standards and exploring alternative marketing channels, such as selling “imperfect” produce directly to consumers, could not only reduce food waste but also improve farmers’ incomes.
They concluded: “It is important that actions towards a shift in social norms related to aesthetic standards and expectations are implemented by different stakeholder groups in parallel, meaning not only on (the) retail level but also on (the) level of civil society. This could be enhanced by policy intervention, such as awareness campaigns to support acceptance and requests of so-called ‘ugly’ fruits and vegetables.”
Source: International Solid Waste Association
“Aesthetic grading causes food losses without financially benefiting farmers: Micro-level evidence from China’s fresh apple supply chain”
https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X241280097
Authors: Xiangping Jia, et al.
