1. There IS a path for ugly fruits and vegetable. When produce is graded at the farm the best looking stuff goes raw to retail, the next grade down can be processed into juice, sauces, dog food and soups. The next grade down, goes to the hogs and the worst stuff goes to the compost pile.
2. Most supermarkets don't make money selling fruits and veg. It is a loss leader because so much of it is ultimately thrown away. Super markets put the fruit and veg right by the front door to create the image that the store is full of fresh healthy items but they make their best money on baked goods, soda and potato chips.
3. Most homeless people don't want old fruit and veg. They don't have refrigerators. They may not have regular access to a sink, a knife, salad dressing, a bowl, a fork, etc. When I worked with Salvation Army their neighbors asked them to stop giving away the unpopular fruit and veg because the clients would go through the bags and throw the unwanted items on people's lawns. On Wednesdays the neighborhood looked like a salad bar had exploded.
4. Increasingly small farms are teaming up with restaurants to close the loop. They deliver fresh stuff and take back items for compost. You will see buckets behind restaurants that say "Property of XXX Farm, Compost service". It is almost impossible to get coffee grounds or banana peels around here because they are so sought after for compost.
5. WalMart was instrumental in changing the date codes from somewhat unreadable codes to VERY readable codes for "Sell by". Not exactly sure why but my guess is that as WalMart entered the suipermarket business they found every possible way to put pressure on competitors so WalMart leveraged their larger through-put and their bigger supply chain -- they could sell a higher percentage of their stuff before the "sell by" dates but smaller market chains could not.
6. The US taxpayer subsidizes the over-production of corn and soy. Last year corn cost on average $3.94 per bushel (70 pounds) to grow but is selling for only $3.50 (5-cents per pound) and the taxpayer will kick in $8 billion to keep that system going. Many other foods are artificially cheap to keep capacity high and to bankrupt farmers in smaller countries.
7. The majority of the cost of food is not growing and harvesting but rather transport, packaging, refrigeration, handling and other post-harvest labor. Here is the NYC wholesale cost of food grown all over the world, picked, washed, transported and bagged:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/nx_fv020.txt
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