25 Feb 2015 “Inglorious fruit ‘n veg” campaign a work of food marketing genius

The scandal of millions of tons of food discarded annually because it doesn’t fit the standards of food beauty has been much on the global agenda. One French supermarket chain decided to do something about it and devised a brilliant campaign to get people to buy ugly fruit ‘n veg.

Intermarché, the third biggest grocer in the country, launched a campaign called “les fruits et légumes moches,” or in English, the “inglorious fruits and vegetables”, in mid 2014.

It gave the produce a 30% markdown, its ad agency came up with some great ads and some serious publicity followed — all to great results.

However, to begin with the unwanted cast-offs didn’t prove vastly popular so the supermarket, determined to prove they were just as flavoursome as those consumers would usually buy, produced soups and juices with the fruit and veg for customers to try.

The result: all stocks of the fruit and vegetables sold out in an initial rush and supermarket traffic overall increased by 24%.

You can watch a video of the campaign here…