If you go to farmers' markets, sometimes there's the option to buy 'rejects' - ugly produce - at a significantly reduced cost.
It would be cool to see something similar in supermarkets, since the waste of tons of food is atrocious on its own merits, and reducing that waste while introducing a cheaper alternative might make produce more affordable all around.
Here's a BBC Radio Four programme that talks about Ugly Fruits and two other "food waste" initiatives. (Zimbabwean orphans growing mushrooms in food waste - raising their status from social outcasts to useful members of society with produce to trade; and John Greany Sørensen who vacuum dries pulps to make crystals from food.)
So did French supermarket Intermarché and Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn. It's encouraging to see that bigger chains are starting to do this. Throwing away perfectly good food just because it doesn't look 'perfect' is pretty ridiculous.
I can tell you right now that 100% of my friends are thrifty enough that they would exclusively buy "reject" produce even at only a marginal discount. By the time you're done preparing the vegetables for the meal you can't even tell what it looked like originally anyway.
All you need to do is ensure that people are aware that the edibility is the same (which, if sold by reputable supermarkets, will be taken as a given) and give them accurate guides on discerning the ripeness of such produce (assuming that our usual standards of ripeness are based on color, or other traits that rejects might not fulfill).
There's a fortune to be made here. Market it to broke post-college grads, counterculture hipsters, and earth-loving hippies. Hint hint, entrepreneurs.
There are places like that... Near me there is a decent sized Persian population and there are some Persian owned markets that get the non "top" quality produce and sell it for a steal. (Top in quotes because it's still usually high quality just not "perfect" looking) I find it hard to buy produce anywhere else.
It would be cool to see something similar in supermarkets, since the waste of tons of food is atrocious on its own merits, and reducing that waste while introducing a cheaper alternative might make produce more affordable all around.