It is a solution for small budgets and against food waste. Baskets made up of ugly fruits and vegetables, which do not find buyers on traditional stalls. A company in Montpellier offers them a second chance in baskets distributed as far as Toulouse.
This September 29 is the international day raising awareness about food loss and waste. According to Ademe, 32% of agricultural production and 21% of processing are lost each year in France. A scourge, as inflation weighs on wallets and prices have continued to increase in recent months.
Apples, carrots, zucchini… Fruits and vegetables destined for the trash are narrowly saved thanks to anti-waste baskets. Every week, in the premises of the Red Cross in Clermont-L’Hérault, more than 300 paper bags are filled.
This initiative launched in 2021 is that of two friends, Manon and Anaïs, and their young start-up “PimpUp”. “We really wanted to save these products from wastetestifies Anaïs Lacombe, one of the co-founders. The idea is to ‘pimp’ these fruits and vegetables which are said to be ugly, or at least which are excluded from current distribution circuits.” In two years, the company went from two volunteers, its founders, to ten employees.
“Pimper” is an English term which means “to highlight”, explains theFrench Academy. Give color to products that don’t look very attractive at first glance, but which retain all their taste and nutritional qualities.
The products in question are collected directly from farmers. In two years, the young company has saved 650 tonnes of food from waste. Once the baskets are prepared in the Clermont-L’Hérault warehouse, they are delivered to around a hundred relay points in Toulouse and Montpellier. And since September, in Montauban.
At the other end of the chain, customers order baskets of two to eight kilos and collect them from the nearest relay point. The price ? From ten to 27 euros. “It’s good because it’s cheaper than what you can buy in supermarkets”explains a follower. “We can adapt according to our desires. And we don’t have to go to the supermarket to stock up on vegetables”, adds another. Another advantage of this basket, consuming “vegetables that I’m not used to cooking.”
The manager of one of the relay points, a grocery store in Montpellier, embarked on the adventure because he shares the values of the young company. But this partnership is also win-win: “It takes a bit of logistics to receive the baskets, store them and return them to customersrecognizes Mathieu Pueyo, manager of the Épicerie de Jacques. But in return, for me it means 20 to 30 more customers coming into the store every week.”
50% of the price of the basket goes to the producers. The company is now targeting one million tonnes of “pimped” products. Eggs will soon come alongside fruits and vegetables in the baskets.
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