Australia as a collective wastes 5.3 million tonnes of food every year, with 2.2 million tonnes of that coming from the commercial and industrial sector. This enormous wastage of food is largely due to the cosmetic standards enforced upon farmers by major supermarket chains, with fruit discarded if too long, short, big, small, fat, thin or score a mark. As cosmetic standards grow stricter, farmers and agricultural departments continue to battle with excessive 2nd rate food waste, throwing out nearly half of their stock every year. These constraints in turn place a huge financial burden upon the agricultural and horticulture industry, forcing them to provide ‘acceptable’ food as instructed by the current market. As a result, the price of such items inflates, making the items less accessible to the 13.3% of the population living under the poverty line — low-income families spend 30% of their income to eat healthily, whereas wealthier people only have to spend 9%.

In France, the international supermarket chain Intermarché began the Inglorious Fruit Campaign, promoting the sellability of ugly fruits. As a result, all dumping of edible foods due to unreasonable cosmetic standards is now banned. Shouldn’t we do the same?

Screw perfection. Why don’t we sell ‘ugly’ fruit amongst their perfect counterparts? Sure, your banana may not be as curved as you would have liked it, but isn’t it the inside that counts? If we win, we may experience the opportunity for everyone to be able to eat, for farmers to gain extra profits and for less food to be simply wasted, producing 20 times more methane gas than ordinary car exhaust. But to be able to do this, we need your help.

We are a democracy. As a people, we can change the world, starting now with a simple signature. Let’s end hunger in Australia today.