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In the world of fruits and vegetables, beauty is indeed only skin deep. There’s no guarantee that a flawless tomato will be flavorful or that a blemished one will fall short on taste. When diced up for a dish like lomi salmon, deliciousness is all that matters. Who needs pretty in such a preparation?
Yet too many of us are accustomed to the supermarket standard of suitable produce. There, shelves are filled with stacks of long, straight carrots and bunches of greens with pristine leaves. But as home gardeners know, nature does not deliver food that’s factory perfect. Carrots can grow in weird angles and leaves do have peek-a-boo holes left by hungry bugs.
Such imperfect produce is referred to as off-grade, B-grade, processing-grade and No. 2-grade — defined as items that don’t conform to bulk purchasers’ retail specifications for size and shape, are past their prime or have blemishes (called “blems”), said Daniel Leung of Kapiolani Community College’s culinary department.
Despite their shortcomings in aesthetics, they still meet the criteria of “wholesome,” or proper for consumption — and their imperfection makes them cheaper.
Off-grades do come with various challenges for processors, Leung said. Blems can be considered too much work because each fruit needs to be inspected. And while farmers markets might be a good place to sell what supermarkets won’t accept, small farms can’t always spare a worker to staff a market stall.
A major challenge particular to Hawaii, he said, is that we have no food processing facility to buy up off-grade products.
“So gnarly or small products are plowed back into the fields, because the profit margin for harvesting them is too small,” he said.
Even at a larger operation such as Aloun Farms, comprising some 1,500 acres where more than 20 kinds of crops are grown, staffing is an issue.
“The challenge is that with low unemployment, it’s difficult to find workers to pick products,” said Mike Lum, Aloun business developer.
That has a substantive effect on the bottom line. Consider the farm’s zucchini crop. Current staffing allows for picking zucchini every other day. The issue: Zucchini grow extremely fast — “It can go from baby to large in a day,” said Lum — and anything that grows beyond acceptable specifications becomes off-grade. Workers always pick a mix of top and off-grades, he said. If the crop could be harvested daily, there would likely be more top-grade product.
“With grade 1 (top grade), the emphasis is on appearance,” he said. Less beautiful products are sold at farmers markets and mom-and-pop stores, and are used in restaurants.
A win-win-win
But sales of No. 2’s benefit all involved.
“The consumer benefits with the lowest price per pound. The farm benefits with more sales. The restaurants benefit from the lower cost and a better profit margin,” Lum said.
Jennifer Hee, who cooks healthful grab- and-go items for Juicy Brew cafes, purchases off-grades when they’re available.
“A product doesn’t have to be perfect, and it’s cheaper,” she said. “We’re not a fancy restaurant. If the kale was bug-eaten it doesn’t matter to us at all.”
Hee sources her fresh, local ingredients through Farm Link Hawaii, an online direct-to-wholesale site where organic farmers and responsible growers can post what they have for sale, and grocers, supermarkets, restaurants, caterers and artisan food producers can shop.
Founder Rob Barreca said he hopes Farm Link becomes a place where imperfect produce is posted and sold regularly.
“I want it to be the source for ugly beets and freaky-looking carrots,” he said. “A lot of restaurants want to support local farmers, and the price is right, so off-grade products have always sold. I want to push it. It keeps the restaurants supplied and the farmers paid.”
Barreca is also co-owner of Counter Culture, an organic farm and producer of fermented products. The fermented foods, a handy way to use off-grade produce, were originally a side business, but became so popular that much of what the farm grows goes to the product line.
Skills for making such value-added products are among the lessons provided by GoFarm Hawaii, a program that teaches people how to become farmers. Barreca is one of its graduates.
In an advanced class, students make preserves, pestos, dressings and fermentations, said Nora Rodli, a GoFarm program coordinator. Not only can those skills improve the bottom line, they allow farmers to create their own markets while educating customers about using off-grade items.
Most of the movement of off-grades happens outside the realm of major distributors, which focus primarily on handling top-grade, or grade A, products.
“If we had accounts that wanted off-grade, we would sell that. But our military contracts, hotels, supermarkets — they’ve got to have grade A. Even Chinatown wants good-grade stuff,” said Letitia Uyehara, marketing director of Armstrong Produce.
A better product
At a place like the Oahu Fresh Food Hub, much of the activity centers on turning off-grades into value-added products.
“We’re a local food incubator,” said owner Matt Johnson. “We aggregate and distribute local-food products.”
The 5,000-square-foot Kalihi hub is especially interested in moving a farm’s surplus and off-grade produce to businesses that use those items in value-added products. These small businesses can rent cold-storage space from the hub, as well as time in its certified kitchen, and areas for packing products and doing office work.
“For instance, there’s so much mango now, it would be great if we had a mango guy in here to make something,” said Johnson. “Or, if a farm says it wants to make something from the mango themselves, they can do it here.”
Getting value-added products market- ready can require expertise. That’s where KCC’s Innovation Center can help. With its food scientists and technology, the center provides research and development support, testing processing options to ensure each product’s shelf life and food safety.
Sometimes, though, the best course is not to cope with off-grades, but to appreciate them for what they are.
Lum of Aloun Farms said some blems actually indicate a better product — for example, a sugar line on a melon. Yet visual aesthetics prevent such fruit from making it to supermarkets.
“People look for big size because bigger is better, right? That’s an American concept,” said Leung. “When I teach about eating local and fresh, I talk about the young, leafy Asian greens I find in Chinatown. They’re the size of your finger — and they’re so delicate and delicious.”
A quick sell
Derek Kurisu appreciates that sensibility. As executive vice president of the perishables department at KTA Super Stores on Hawaii island, he takes a proactive, progressive approach toward getting off-grades into the hands of customers.
The key to anything with a limited shelf life, he said, is to move it before it becomes old. Once he gets the word on such a product, he puts it on sale — on social media.
“We act within a day, and if the price is right, it moves quickly,” he said.
“I just did an experiment a month ago with pineapple. They were small pineapples but I told the farmer, ‘Pick ’em all.’ Then I did a small video, and we flushed them out on social media.”
The added bonus of selling off-grade, he said, is that it provides a service to a certain segment of customers.
“Some customers don’t want a big head of lettuce, so inconsistent size is good,” he said. “There’s a value for everything.”
A royal showcase for some lowly ingredients
The Royal Hawaiian is exploring the possibilities of imperfect foodstuff in the next installment of its Epicurean Journey culinary series — “Misfits,” a dinner on June 30 and a cooking event and luncheon on July 1.
Chefs Shaymus Alwin, Colin Hazama, Chris Kirksey and Carolyn Portuondo will deliver a six-course meal using not just off-grade produce, but also proteins that aren’t prime cuts.
Dishes will feature chicken livers, veal sweetbreads, pork cheeks and kampachi belly, which Alwin deems “a good piece of meat — it’s fatty.”
“Most people are used to the fleshy parts of the fish,” he said. “At the store, the fish are broken down so much that customers don’t see (the belly).”
The dish promises to be delicious, with a cold smoke preparation and dressed with a dehydrated fish skin fried into a chicharon.
Slated for the following day: breaking down a whole fish and utilizing the whole thing, “head, bones, everything,” said Alwin. The session will be followed by lunch.
Prices: $250 for dinner, cooking class and lunch ($280 with wine pairings); $150 dinner only ($180 with wine); $100 cooking class and lunch ($130 class with alcohol). To reserve a spot, call 921-4600.
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