Funny-looking pumpkins are not allowed in supermarkets

Pumpkins weighing more than 1.5 kilos, or less than 800 grams, are not purchased by supermarkets. But what is a farmer supposed to do with them? Destroy them, usually. And that applies to many more vegetables and fruits – which, apart from a cosmetic flaw, are perfectly fine.

Supermarkets have strict requirements for the pumpkins they buy: at least 800 grams, otherwise they are too small, and a maximum of 1,200 grams, because that is large enough for a family. The pumpkins are sold individually; otherwise, customers would have to weigh them and stick a label on them – that is too much work. But pumpkins grow however they want. Some grow large, while others remain small. This year, more than 10,000 kilos of pumpkin from pumpkin farmer Chris Poelen were a different size. And then what? Destroy them or sell them somewhere else; there are no other options.

Crooked stewing pears

In West Friesland, many farmers sell their surplus harvest by the side of the road. Last week, kilos of crooked stewing pears were for sale there, which the supermarket had not bought. Farmer Poelen sold his unusual pumpkins to Breda Maakt Mij Blij, where consumers could buy them. The same initiative also sold asparagus, apples and plums, as well as gladioli left over because the Vierdaagse was cancelled. In England, funny-looking vegetables are sold through an oddbox, a subscription for crooked vegetables and misshapen fruit.

Sauce or soup

It seems that consumers do not have much of a problem with undersized pumpkins, crooked cucumbers and lopsided pears, but supermarkets do not buy them. Even though those funny-looking vegetables are perfectly suitable for a sauce or soup, and taste just as good as unblemished vegetables and fruit. Couldn’t this be done differently? For a while, we had Kromkommer, a small company that made soup from unusual vegetables, but unfortunately that initiative stopped at the beginning of this year…

Six hundred kilos, one pumpkin

At least one out-of-category pumpkin was hugely enjoyed last week, because the Rungis vegetable company gave the elephants at Blijdorp a pumpkin weighing more than 600 kilos. A feast for the elephants!

Read also:

• That’s shocking! This vegetable is bizarrely large
• How fresh are canned vegetables, really?
• Raw vegetables: don’t eat this one if you want to stay reasonably healthy

Source: RTL Nieuws