The wrong shape, the right price.
A third of what comes off this ground is the wrong size, the wrong shape or the wrong colour for a supermarket specification. It is the same crop, off the same field, on the same day. It costs about half.
What "seconds" actually means here.
It means a carrot that forked because it hit a stone, a potato over 80mm, an onion under 40, or a beetroot that grew faster than its neighbours. None of that is a defect. All of it fails a specification written for a machine that grades by calliper.
It does not mean old, damaged, or anywhere near going off. Anything genuinely past it goes to the pigs, and the pigs are not fussy about the difference between a second and a third.
The economics are simple and slightly grim: the packhouse takes the grade-one crop at a price that barely covers growing it, and the rest is worth nothing at all unless somebody sells it directly. This is that.
What is going this week.
Stock changes with the grading line, so this list is short, honest and frequently empty. When it is empty the page says Fallowing rather than pretending.
This week off the grader.
| What | Why it failed grade | Normal | Seconds | How much |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potatoes, Maris Piper | Over 80mm | £1.40/kg | £0.70/kg | 400kg |
| Carrots | Forked on stones | £1.80/kg | £0.90/kg | 180kg |
| Beetroot | Oversize | £2.20/kg | £1.10/kg | 90kg |
| Onions | Under 40mm | £1.20/kg | £0.55/kg | 220kg |
| Squash | Marked skin | £3.00 each | £1.40 each | 60 units |
| Bee Juice Honey | Label misprint | £12.20 | £8.50 | 31 jars |
The waste problem, in numbers.
Why this is not charity.
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It is the same crop.
Lifted on the same day, off the same field, by the same machine. The only difference is that it went left rather than right at the grader.
Nobody is doing anybody a favour here. It is worth money and it was about to be worth nothing.
A forked carrot tastes exactly like a straight one, which anyone who has eaten a carrot already knows.
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The discount is real, not a reference price.
The "normal" column is what the graded version actually sells for in the shop that week, not an inflated figure invented to make the discount look bigger.
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It runs out, and then it is gone.
There is no seconds warehouse. When the week's grading is sold the page is empty until the next lift, which in February can be a fortnight.
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Some of it is our fault.
The honey on the list this week failed because somebody printed thirty-one labels upside down. That is not agriculture, that is us, and it would be dishonest to file it under "nature's imperfections".
Half of what is on this page is the weather. The other half is a Tuesday.
It will not keep as long.
A carrot that forked has more surface area and a squash with a marked skin has a way in for the rot. Seconds are sound when they leave here and they are not a fortnight's shopping. Cook them this week.
What people ask.
No. Anything past it goes to the pigs. This is sound crop that failed a size specification.
Because it costs the same to lift, wash and pack. The only saving is the grade, so the discount is what the grade was worth.
No. We do not know what the grader will reject until it has rejected it.
Sometimes, at the end of a big lift, and it goes on the boxes page rather than here.
Elsewhere on the estate.
/shopping/what-to-cook/
/shopping/in-season/
/lawyering/cleaned-out/
