Cleveland, Ohio – The commercial begins with a wide shot of a tractor driving through a field. Then we see farm workers harvesting vegetables before the shot cuts back to a shoreline. A farmer comes into the frame and explains that a cucumber has a “yellow belly” because it was grown lying on the ground.
It all tastes the same. These fruits and vegetables just aren’t pretty enough to make it to store shelves. You can save them from the landfill and save money in the process. Just sign up for weekly deliveries of ugly produce from Misfits Market.
I’ve seen the commercial over and over again. And I’m sorry to tell you that this ugly product is not cheaper – at least not when I tried to buy it.
Forget discount stores. Even shopping at Whole Foods was cheaper.
Misfits Market is a grocery delivery service that provides shoppers with locally grown, often organic produce. Every week or every two weeks, an algorithm creates a shopping basket tailored to you.
You can edit the shopping cart by adding or removing items. If you buy enough to reach the minimum purchase value, it will be delivered to your home.
That’s the ugly stuff the grocery store doesn’t want. And Misfits Market says you can save up to 30%. But “up to 30%” is no guarantee of savings.
In my experience, the prices at Misfits Market are actually on par with what you would spend at Whole Foods.
Test Misfits Market
I’m a gardener and a pro at growing ugly produce. And I’m interested in “saving money.” I thought I’d sign up for Misfits Market, save money, and see how ugly these fruits and vegetables are.
However, things did not go as expected.
Each week when I saw Misfits Market’s custom orders, the prices seemed high to me. I removed the high-priced items that took me under the minimum order value and tried again the next week.
At some point I gave up.
That was in June. But I saved screenshots of my order and finally sat down to do some price comparisons and see if those prices were really high.
Normally, I would also look at Walmart or Giant Eagle. To be as fair as possible, I decided to compare Misfits Market to a luxury grocer, Whole Foods.
Phew.
I looked at two orders, one with 11 items and another with nine.
On the first order, Misfits Market was $38 and Whole Foods was $37.50. On the second order, Misfits Market was $35.50 and Whole Foods was $37.
These stands had everything from organic pineapple to non-organic celery. Whole Foods won on blackberries, Misfits Markets won on cauliflower. Some prices were exactly the same.
Again, Misfits Market created the item list. Whole Foods was out of stock of two items that Misfits Market was going to supply, so I didn’t include them.
And because Whole Foods sometimes sold larger quantities of fruits and vegetables, the prices were sometimes unfairly higher in my test. But then there’s another problem.
Whole Foods’ produce wasn’t ugly. And the delivery fee wasn’t $6.
Avoiding bad deals
So why bring up this topic? Well, because I’m sick of marketing.
Misfits Market is one of those companies that Gen Z or Millennials constantly see advertised on social media. For about a month, I couldn’t escape it.
And this advertising gives customers the illusion that they are saving money – and protecting the planet. The business model makes sense at first glance. It sounds good to put an end to food waste.
However, I wonder how many people actually stopped to check the prices. When you run through the numbers, the idea is completely ineffective.
Compare that to Flashfood, an app I wrote about in 2022. This app allows local grocery stores to promote foods that are approaching their expiration date or even mystery boxes of fruits and vegetables.
This service works. It prevents food waste. We get ugly products or others cheap. But at the end of the day, it delivers on its core value proposition. Unfortunately, that is rare.
I may well be wrong. I reached out to Misfits Market’s PR team to get the company’s statement and they have yet to respond.
The products are from the region. Maybe there are simply no good offers in our area? Maybe I used the service incorrectly.
I can find positive reviews for Misfits Market in articles and on YouTube videos. But these reviews often also contain referral codes that encourage you to buy things from Misfits Market.
From what I understand, the business model has changed. Misfits Market – and a company it bought called Imperfect Foods – used to offer a service that would send you surprise boxes of fruits and vegetables.
The old Misfits Market system worked like Flashfood and maybe even better. The new system doesn’t seem to work at all.
You save money Is cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer’s money-saving column. We want to know how we can help you save money. Send your questions and comments to [email protected].
Read previous columns at cleveland.com/topic/save-you-money/.
