Review: Imperfect Produce

As you might know if you've been reading the blog for a few years, when we lived in Arizona, we signed up for a veggie delivery service known as Chow Locally (I blogged about it here).  Although we ended up cancelling our service with them once they merged with another local group (and started continually charging us for produce that wasn't delivered - not cool), we really enjoyed using them.  Thus, when I saw a Facebook ad come across for a firm called Imperfect Produce (IP), which was recently expanding to the greater LA area, I was intrigued.

It seems like the main logo for IP

is a tomato shaped like a heart -

but it was the one that looks like a butt

that caught my eye.

Apparently, IP started in San Francisco with the main goal of reducing the amount of fruits and veggies that get tossed out and go to waste each day.  The idea is that farmers grow tons of produce and attempt to sell it to grocery stores; since stores only want to stock their shelves with the produce that looks "ideal," perfectly good food that is slightly misshapen, larger or smaller than normal, and the like gets discarded.  IP buys these "rejects" for a low price and then resells them to consumers, allegedly still at a discounted rate from what you would pay if you went to your normal store.

After several years of volunteering at food banks in Phoenix (particularly St. Mary's, which does amazing work), I've seen first-hand how food that can't be sold in a market can still be eaten and enjoyed, even if it's a bit dented up or past the date on the package (I vividly recall learning this about eggs, which still sticks with me to this day).  I'm also a sucker for a deal, so I figured I'd give IP a shot (like always in reviews, I've not been compensated for anything - as if someone would pay me to write this ridiculous blog - so my opinions are totally my own.  With that said, if you want to try IP out, I do have a discount code, so lemme know).

First things first - with IP, you sign up for a recurring delivery, either for once a week or once every other week.  You also sign up for what size box you want (there are 4 sizes, I think) and what type (organic versus conventional, all fruits versus all veg versus a combo).  I initially (in early July) signed us up for a small, organic combo box to come once every other week.  Allegedly, you can skip shipments as many times as needed, and even put up to five shipments on future hold, if you're going out of town or something, and you can cancel at any time (I give the "allegedly" disclaimer as I haven't tried any of this yet, so I don't know how easy it actually is).  

One thing that I'd like to see expand a bit with IP's offerings here in the LA area is that it doesn't seem like they currently have pickup options available, so everything is delivered to your door.  While it's convenient, that's not free, and that's $5 I wouldn't mind saving, if a close pickup location existed (however, if it's $5 versus driving 2 hours in LA traffic to pick up in Santa Monica or someplace stupid, $5 is WELL worth not dealing with that).  You also can't pick your delivery time or day; to maximize efficiency, IP handles all deliveries in a certain area on a certain day, which totally makes logical sense, but it does mean me having to plan things properly (and ya'll know how much I hate planning - insert extreme sarcasm here).

Our particular delivery day is classified as Thursday, even though our window is from 6pm Wednesday night through 6am Thursday morning.  At first, this seemed rather odd to me, but I guess if you live in a warmer area of the country (LA versus San Fran) and you work outside of your house, you don't want to come home to a box of veggies that's been steaming in the sun on your front porch all day long.  Noms.  You can leave a note for the delivery driver in your online account, so I mentioned that I'd try to remember to put a small table outside on the front porch, and to please put the produce box there, to keep it off the ground and away from pests (we normally have a few ants roaming around out there somewhere, even though they're quieter at night).

IP gives you the ability to customize your box, which is a nice change from Chow Locally and other CSA's of its sort.  Since our delivery is on Thursdays, on Friday afternoon around 3, I received an email telling me my box was now open for customization!

Ta da!

See, there's the heart tomato.

Given my delivery window, I had until Sunday night to finish any customization, which worked out well, as I had the entire weekend to figure things out.  Even though I chose the organic box, I had the ability to add conventional produce options in there as well; I took out the cherry tomatoes on offer (so.many.tomatoes in the garden right now) as well as the squash (ditto - so.many.zucchini).  I kept in the serrano peppers, oyster mushrooms, nectarines, romaine lettuce head, and garlic, and I added things I knew we'd use and/or would stay good for a while, in case we didn't: limes, lemons, and carrots.  I also tried to add a few more things, like onions and cilantro, but I kept getting error messages on the page; I assume adding these other items would have made my box go outside of the "small" box weight/size category, and this caused the limit to be applied.

One thing I really liked as I was customizing the box is that the IP website gave you the reason why the items were considered "imperfect."  For example, the nectarines were too big, and the limes were too small.  Other items were just excess, which I'm assuming means the stores couldn't use all of them and thus, didn't buy them in the quantity supplied.  I should point out here that I don't really care why the item is "imperfect" as long as it's edible; I'm just nosy.  As I customized my order, my total cost also updated automatically, and I could easily see if the items I was selecting were a reasonable discount compared to what was offered at our local Vons.

Our first delivery came in the wee hours of Thursday, 7/20, and I put the table out around 5:45 the night before.  When I headed to bed around 9, I checked and the box wasn't there yet, but the magic produce elves must have come during the night, because when I headed out for a run the next morning, there was the box!  It was on the table as requested, and the delivery folks must have been super quiet, because even Extra High Alert Kaylee (this happens when Chris goes on a business trip) didn't hear them drop off the goods.

Our first box!

Our packing checklist

Inside the box

Overall, I was really pleased when I opened the box; before I signed up with IP, I read several reviews online, and some folks mentioned having somewhat spoiled produce in their boxes (most of these were on Yelp! and the IP folks seemed to quickly respond to each one, offering help and solutions, so that's a positive).  All of our items were fresh and lovely looking, fully in the prime of their respective lives.  Most of the items were clean, but the lettuce still held onto some field dirt, although it's really hard to clean lettuce before packaging it for sale (leeks, too - have you ever tried to clean leeks without stripping the entire bloody things apart?  It's darn near impossible).

I did notice that our box seemed to have plenty of extra room within it, so if this cardboard structure is what's commonly considered a "small" box, I'm wondering why the website wouldn't let me add like 3 onions and a clump of cilantro to my order, as it clearly would have fit.  Anywhoo, I pulled out our haul, distributing it into the fridge and the veggie/fruit holder on the counter as needed.

Awww, chubby nectarine.

You look lovely to me!

The box also contained a recipe card for bok choy (not in my box, but I kept it in case) and another card with instructions to follow.

The back of this card gave me a mission some of you might have seen on Facebook in mid-July, which was to find the "wonkiest" piece of produce in my box and put it on social media with the proper hashtag.  Doing so allegedly leads IP to donate 5 pounds of food to a local San Fran food bank, which is awesome.  I was hoping to have a super weirdo piece to showcase, but this was the strangest member of this bunch:

Well, that's pretty boring, right?

To spice it up,

we'll call him Can Can Carrot,

since his leg's all kicked out like

he's on stage at the Moulin Rouge.

Although almost everything was looking good, I realized a few hours later that my box was missing the serrano peppers I'd ordered.  It wasn't a big deal - the serranos were just for making salsa, and we have PLENTY of jalapenos waiting to serve that purpose - but I didn't want to pay for produce I hadn't received.  I emailed the IP Team that afternoon, and I initially received an auto-reply stating that the team was small, but they'd get back to me as soon as they could.  When almost a week went by without further follow-up and my bank account was charged the full amount, I emailed them again, asking what refund might be issued and when that might come.  I received a response within just a few hours, apologizing for the oversight and delay; the service rep was very kind in her correspondence and not only refunded the charge for the serranos ($3) but also gave me a coupon code for $5 off my next purchase.  Although it took longer than I'd think to get a response, the things offered as an apology for this worked for me and seemed reasonable.

Overall, my total was initially $21.51 (before the serranos were taken off), which was $16.52 of produce and a $4.99 delivery fee.  This included 1 pound of conventional carrots, 2 conventional lemons, 2 heads of organic garlic, 3 organic limes, 2 organic nectarines, 1 head of organic romaine, 1/3 lb of organic serranos, and 8 oz of organic oyster mushrooms.  In comparing prices on the Vons.com delivery website (with items that were roughly comparable, but not identical), it seems I would have spent around $16.17.  So, pretty much exactly the same, but delivery through Vons would have been a bit more (although they do seem to offer lots of discounts on shipping), and I would have had to buy at least $49 worth of groceries to even have them bring me my stuff (I have ordered grocery delivery from Vons in the past - due to a great discount and free shipping, not just from laziness, thank you - and they weren't great; my order included lots of much pricier substitutions I wouldn't have made, had I been in the actual store.  I won't do that again).  

Two weeks later, just this past Thursday, we received our second box of produce, and it was good, too, overall.  The box actually came before I went to bed on Wednesday night, so it only sat on the front doorstep for a few minutes (thanks, highly alert dog!), and I was able to get the pertinent items into the fridge pretty quickly.  Most things looked good, but some of the peaches were a little bruised, which might have been their "imperfection."  No weirdo looking veggies again, sadly.  

When I hit our customization window for this one, I didn't do too much; I took out the tomatoes (again - we still have plenty on our own), and I subbed out the mini watermelon for more peaches, since Chris has recently been enjoying having them as dessert (I'm currently in a calorie counting phase, so I've been trying not to keep dessert items in the house).  Overall, our order consisted of the peaches, broccoli, creamer potatoes, garlic, leeks, and red leaf lettuce, all organic this time.  The total came to $21.22, including shipping, but I did have the $8 of credits mentioned above, so my cost was only $13.22.  Comparable shopping on the Vons site showed a total of $19.79, so this box's total cost with shipping was only a $2 premium over Vons, and I actually paid less, taking into account the credits I had on file.

Eensy, weensy potatoes!

All things considered, I will probably order from IP again, as their produce was great, and they offered some things I can't always find at my local store (the oyster mushrooms, for example).  Since the cost is essentially identical to what I'd pay at the store, it seems that the main benefit is the "fun/cool" factor, plus the small chance that eventually I'll have a pepper that looks like a penguin or something equally rad (I would say the butt tomato, but I have plenty of those growing in my own garden right now).  Kidding aside, I guess the nicest thing about the service is that it stops perfectly good food from ending up in a landfill somewhere, and that's something to be happy about, particularly if IP also benefits the local community through the food bank donations mentioned earlier.

Later!

Amy