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The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) estimates that about a third of all the food produced in the world is lost or goes to waste at various nodes in the value chain. Although the terms food losses and food waste are often used interchangeably, the WWF explains that the decrease in quantity and quality of food, known as food loss, usually happens between farming, production, and distribution. In contrast, food waste occurs at the value chain’s consumer, retail, and food service stages.
Food losses and waste could be caused by a wide range of challenges occurring throughout the value chain, including overproduction, cuts, bruises, diseases, insect or pest damage, rotting, infrastructure shortcomings (e.g. inadequate cold chain maintenance), environmental changes (e.g. heat waves, flooding), improper storage, overprovisioning, and lack of knowledge on food preparation and storage at home.
Figure 1: General importance of reducing food waste.
Another challenge is the significant waste generated due to consumer preferences for aesthetically perfect produce. Despite being edible and nutritious, imperfect or ‘ugly’ vegetables and fruit (e.g. with imperfections in shape and size) are often discarded, driven by biases towards appearance over nutritional value.
This is also relevant to the local potato industry (similar to global trends), where market standards prioritise cosmetic perfection, leading to the rejection and subsequent waste of a large portion of the potato crop that is ‘ugly’ or not aesthetically perfect (e.g. potatoes with odd shapes, some blemishes, or dirty potatoes).
Ugly potatoes in South Africa
Little is known regarding consumers’ perceptions of ‘ugly’ potatoes in South Africa. As part of the Technology Innovation Agency-funded project of Potatoes SA titled the “Feasibility study of a new value chain for lower grade potatoes in the agroprocessing industry”, the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy and the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University conducted consumer research to address the critical research question: Are ‘ugly potatoes’ an acceptable product category for consumers to reduce waste in the South African potato value chain?
To address this research question, the study investigated consumers’ perceptions, willingness to accept, and willingness to pay for ‘ugly’ potatoes. To address this research question, a questionnaire-based consumer survey was conducted in 2024 among low-income (LI), middle-income (MI) and affluent (AFF) consumer segments (n=61, n=62 and n=93 respectively, with a total sample of n=216) mainly residing in the Western Cape (77%), but also Gauteng (8%), Eastern Cape (6%) and Mpumalanga (5%). Data collection involved a combination of online self-completion (mainly MI and AFF) and face-to-face interviews (mainly LI).
We targeted the main food purchasers in households, covering a range of age groups (18 to 24 years 6%, 25 to 34 years 29%, 35 to 54 years 50%, 55+ years 15%), genders (75% female, 25% male) and ethnicities (41% white, 32% black, 22% coloured, 5% other).
Food waste in general
Most respondents (78% of the total weighted sample) agreed that it is important to reduce food waste, with only 6% in disagreement (with no statistically significant differences between socio-economic sub-groups).
Thus, the importance of reducing food waste is well-recognised among all socio-economic sub-groups. The uncertain ‘maybe’ group could be converted to the ‘yes’ group through targeted consumer education on the importance of reducing food waste.
Motivations to reduce food waste
- Consumers’ dominant motivation for reducing food waste across the socio-economic spectrum focusses on household-level financial considerations (e.g. reducing waste because living costs are high, budgets are under pressure, food is expensive, to save money). As expected, these financial considerations become less prominent with rising socio-economic status.
- Food security motivations ranked second, related to reducing food waste to reduce food shortages, improve global food security and hunger, and lend support to economically vulnerable people. These considerations were more prominent among middle-income and affluent respondents.
- Other considerations mentioned focussed on sustainability, morals and the economy – all more prominent among middle-income and affluent respondents.
Table 1: Motivations to reduce food waste1. (Source: Survey results)
| Low-income | Middle-income | Affluent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| % of respondents in the sub-group mentioning motivation to reduce household waste | |||
| Financial motivations |
Food is expensive – 40% Saving money – 20% High living cost – 10% Budget considerations – 3% Hard economic times – 3% |
Food is expensive – 30% Saving money – 15% Budget considerations – 7% |
Food is expensive – 25% Saving money – 20% |
| Food security motivations |
Reducing food shortage – 10% Supporting the vulnerable or needy – 5% |
Supporting the vulnerable or needy – 20% Global food security or hunger – 5% |
Supporting the vulnerable or needy – 15% Global food security or hunger – 7% |
| Sustainability motivations |
Resource conservation – 5% Environmental concerns – 2% |
Environmental concerns – 8% Reducing impact of waste – 1% |
Environmental concerns – 10% Resource conservation – 6% |
| Moral motivations | Moral responsibility – 2% |
Moral and religious beliefs – 10% Avoiding guilt – 2% |
Moral and ethical beliefs – 8% Avoiding guilt – 3% Teaching values – 2% |
| Economic motivations | – | Economic impact or improvement – 2% | Economic impact or improvement – 4% |
Consumer education can help to broaden consumers’ motivation towards food waste reduction, focussing on aspects such as (1) the proper storage and handling of food at home to prevent spoilage and waste; (2) the importance of proper household menu and shopping list planning; (3) evidence-based consumer education on the other benefits of reduced food waste about food security, sustainability, morals and the economy.
Waste quantity and causes
Households indicated that they typically discard or waste 14% of all potatoes purchased (with no statistically significant differences between the socio-economic sub-groups). Thus, if a household purchases a kilogram of potatoes for R27, the value of the waste amounts to R3.80/kg purchased in the case of this example.
Across all socio-economic sub-groups, the dominant reason for discarding potatoes is rotting, followed by ‘old potatoes’, greening and blemishes. ‘Old potatoes” and greening are relatively more prominent among middle-income and affluent consumers, while blemishes as a reason to discard potatoes are relatively more prominent among low-income consumers.
The low importance of misshapen potatoes could likely be attributed to the observation that potatoes sold at the retail level in South Africa are usually already sorted to remove misshapen potatoes at previous stages in the potato value chain.
Figure 2: Percentage of sample indicating the reason for discarded potatoes ‘often’ and ‘very often’.
‘Dirty’ and ‘ugly’ potatoes
To gain deeper insight into consumers’ evaluation of imperfect potatoes, respondents were presented with three images of potatoes: ‘perfect’ potatoes (referred to as Photograph 1 in the survey), ‘dirty’ potatoes (referred to as Photograph 2 in the survey), and ‘ugly’ potatoes (referred to as Photograph 3 in the survey).
During the surveys, these images were shown to participants without labelling the potatoes as perfect, dirty, or ugly. Rather, the participants were left to draw their uninfluenced conclusions.
Table 2: Visual evaluation of ‘perfect’, ‘dirty’ and ‘ugly’ potatoes.
Recommendations
Promote ‘ugly’ potatoes in retail Collaborate with major retailers to pilot a category for ‘ugly’ potatoes, combined with discounts and targeted marketing campaigns, to reduce food waste and meet value-driven consumer demands.
Consumer education campaigns
Launch campaigns to educate consumers on the nutritional value and equivalence of ‘ugly’ potatoes to perfect potatoes in terms of quality, nutritional value and taste, helping reduce household food waste. Also, educate consumers on suitable cooking methods for ‘ugly’ potatoes. Consumer education efforts can help to broaden consumers’ motivations to reduce food waste and support hunger relief in South Africa.
Discount strategies
Retailers should experiment with price discounts to incentivise purchases of ‘ugly’ produce and explore optimal discount levels for consumer acceptance.
Align retailer aesthetic standards
Collaborate with producers to adjust aesthetic standards based on consumer preferences, tailoring offerings to different income groups.
Future research
Further investigate consumers’ preferences and motivations regarding ‘ugly’ potatoes, with a specific focus on a larger and geographically wider sample.
Understanding consumers’ tolerance for the level of ugliness of potatoes is also important. The effectiveness of consumer education messages and communication channels should also be investigated in future. From a wider perspective, this type of research should also be broadened to other fruits and vegetables to further enhance food security and sustainability. – L Solomon, Dr H Vermeulen and Dr M van der Merwe
For more information and references, send an email to hester.v@bfap.co.za.