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ASDA veg box with list of stores participating

http://your.asda.com/news-and-blogs/asda-s-phenomenal-wonky-veg-coming-to-a-store-near-you

http://your.asda.com/system/dragonfly/production/2016/02/17/16_11_09_832_wonkyvegstorelist.html

Very good idea. On the news today, although I always understood it was the 'Common Market' that decreed shape, size, weight, colour, in all these things, including eggs. Maybe the rules have been relaxed or maybe I was completely wrong (again).

Part of it is EU regulations but part of it is Sales of Goods Act and similar.

Fruit and veg are "classed" on quality but beyond a certain stage the name of the product is in question (eg could a round orange coloured dried up banana be called a banana).

https://www.fsai.ie/uploadedFiles/Consol%20Commission%20Regulation%20%28EC%29%20No%201580_2007.pdf

Can't read all that DD

Simpler form about some of the 'rules'

The EU passed a directive in 1994 ruling that top-of-the-range bananas had to be ‘free from malformation or abnormal curvature of the fingers’. The directive was ridiculed as a symbol of bureaucratic excess in Brussels.

In 1988, it ruled that top-of-the-range cucumbers must bend by only 10mm per 10cm in a directive designed to help packaging and transport.

In 1979, another directive ruled that carrots should be termed as fruits, as the Portuguese made jam out of them.

In 2003, a threatened European ban on smoky-bacon crisps was averted at the last minute when MEPs forced through amendments after a backlash from the British ­public.

Neil Herron, campaign dir­ector of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, said the EU directive was ‘absolute nonsense’.

He added: ‘If I was a farmer I would get my customers to throw eggs at any official trying to enforce this. It is dir­ectives like this that give the European project a bad name.


'It makes the British public want to just pull out of the whole thing altogether.’




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ood-weighed-sold-kilo.html#ixzz40XLq2WNm

Copy/ pasted from a facebook status of mine a couple of weeks ago:

Was in Aldi before. The spuds were about £1.80 for 2.5 kg. Spotted a bag of 5kg for £2.26. I thought ' I will have them, nothing wrong with them'. Just read this article and learnt that they do not make the grade for the other bags because of their shape! Wtf!!! Nothing but snobbery!!!!!
And AND Tesco use the odd shaped spuds to make their ready mash. So all the people buying the ready made mash are paying over inflated prices for 'substandard' spuds. Madness!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201..._9169362.html?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001

Rude you should get your spuds from home bargains or heron only 69p

The wonky veg box is a step in the right direction and a neat little advertising gimmick - but it's still criminal the amount of perfectly edible produce that is thrown away. Let's see other supermarkets giving Asda a run for its money with a 'Beatiful on the inside' range, or a 'Dare to be different' range, or a 'Twisted but tasty' range... actually, maybe not that last one? <snert> It would put some 'vava voom' into veg, though!

It is very little to do with the EU but mainly sits with the supermarkets who have been looking for uniform products, same shape, size and colour as they are easier to manage in their supply chains and to keep their shelves stocked. So look to Tesco, Asda, Morrisons etc.