There’s not enough demand here to sell all the “ugly” ones.
I’m not sure that you (and the banana merchants) are correct about this assumption. In this thread, there are many people who want to buy ugly produce, and not all want it at a reduced price.
If there were, the markets that specialize in “ugly” produce would do much, much better, have higher demand and buy up more of the produce to fill it.
That 40% is what’s left after supermarkets buy all the “pretty” bananas they think they can sell, manufactured food companies buy up what they can use for stuff like purees, sliced banana going into various products, that sort of thing and “ugly” produce sellers (places like Misfits Market) buying up what they think they can sell. I don’t think bananas are used in animal feed but for crops where that’s a common use some of it gets sold for that. Broadly, each of these involves the farmer making less money per unit weight than the previous and selling less desirable product to each.
I’m not sure that you (and the banana merchants) are correct about this assumption. In this thread, there are many people who want to buy ugly produce, and not all want it at a reduced price.
If there were, the markets that specialize in “ugly” produce would do much, much better, have higher demand and buy up more of the produce to fill it.
That 40% is what’s left after supermarkets buy all the “pretty” bananas they think they can sell, manufactured food companies buy up what they can use for stuff like purees, sliced banana going into various products, that sort of thing and “ugly” produce sellers (places like Misfits Market) buying up what they think they can sell. I don’t think bananas are used in animal feed but for crops where that’s a common use some of it gets sold for that. Broadly, each of these involves the farmer making less money per unit weight than the previous and selling less desirable product to each.