Britain’s long goodbye will leave an unfillable hole in the EU project ( Archived) (158)

When I lived in London I stopped believing in the benefits of the EU when some official in Brussels ruled you could not sell a banana if it was the wrong shape.

You were right many tons of good fruit were thrown away because of this.

Those who believed that complete myth (it was completely discredited later as fake news) used to be referred to as 'the bent banana brigade,' meaning a person who belive anything published in the tabloids.

A “shocking” amount of fruit and vegetables that are “perfectly good to eat” are being thrown away instead of making it to supermarket shelves for not looking the way consumers expect them to, according to research.

Each year an estimated 50 million tonnes of farmed fruit and vegetables grown in Europe is discarded for being the wrong size or misshapen, the research suggests, meaning more than a third of total farm production is lost for aesthetic reasons.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh estimate that the UK makes up nearly a tenth of the waste,

A ban on the sale of some misshapen produce will be dropped.Credit...Mychele Daniau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Stephen Castle

Nov. 12, 2008

BRUSSELS ? Misshapen fruit and vegetables won a reprieve on Wednesday from the European Union as it scrapped rules banning overly curved, extra knobbly or oddly shaped produce from supermarket shelves.

Ending regulations on the size and shape of 26 types of fruit and vegetables, the European authorities killed off restrictions that had become synonymous with bureaucratic meddling.

The rising cost of commodities also persuaded the European Commission that there was no point in throwing away food just because it looked strange.

As of July, when the changes go into force, these standards for the 26 products, as varied as peas and plums, will disappear. European shoppers will then be able to choose their produce whatever its appearance.

For 10 other types of fruit and vegetables, including apples, citrus, peaches, pears, strawberries and tomatoes, shape standards will remain. But items that do not meet European norms will still be allowed onto the market provided they are marked as being substandard or intended for cooking or processing.

“This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot,” said Mariann Fischer Boel, European commissioner for agriculture, who argued that regulations were better left to market operators.

But not bent bananas...


"A Brussels ban on bendy bananas is one of the EU’s most persistent myths.

Bananas have always been classified by quality and size for international trade. Because the standards, set by individual governments and the industry, were confusing, the European Commission was asked to draw up new rules.

Commission regulation 2257/94 decreed that bananas in general should be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature”. Those sold as “extra class” must be perfect, “class 1” can have “slight defects of shape” and “class 2” can have full-scale “defects of shape”.

Nothing is banned under the regulation, which sets grading rules requested by industry to make sure importers – including UK wholesalers and supermarkets – know exactly what they will be getting when they order a box of bananas."

Dunno about bent bananas, ththought they were bent anyway

But I witnessed in person the regection of tons of fruit that were not up to supermarket standard, in Cyprus, whole fields full. Many tons.