Why don’t you just donate all of your produce?

We believe in creating a better food system for everyone, and that includes farmers and our employees. Farmers simply can’t afford to donate all of their surplus and ugly produce, which is why we pay them a fair price for food they would have otherwise had to leave in the field or sell for pennies on the dollar. In addition to supporting farmers, we sell rather than donate our produce so we can provide a living wage and healthcare to all of our full-time Imperfect employees in every city we operate in. Every customer who receives a box of our produce is helping make this happen.

While our founders have roots in nonprofits, after starting the Food Recovery Network in 2011, they found that the logistics of getting fresh produce from farms to the folks who need it was costly and complex. Being a for-profit social enterprise has allowed Imperfect to donate more food to our food bank partners than we ever could have as a nonprofit -- 3.4 million pounds and counting as of September 2019. And with our low-cost boxes for SNAP recipients, we’ve been able to make fresh, healthy, and delicious produce available at an affordable price to even more people.

We fully support other companies and organizations finding their own solutions to tackling the issues of food waste and hunger. The problem is so large and complex that we can all find our own ways to help. We’re proud to be doing our part in the most effective - and imperfect - way we know how, with the understanding that there’s always more to learn, grow, and do.