Skip to main content

Imperfect Produce, Perfect Branding

Imperfect Produce is a customizable weekly produce delivery company that offers irregular produce at reduced costs. The company was born out of a desire to reduce food waste. According to their website, “more than 20% of the fruits and vegetables grown in America never make it off the farm because they aren’t perfect enough for grocery store standards,” resulting in “billions of pounds of wasted produce every year.” This is an issue that I’ve been aware of for a while, after having seen the documentary Just Eat It, but I didn’t really know what to do about it aside from picking less desirable-looking produce at stores. So I was really excited when I found out that this service had become available in LA, having first established itself in Northern California. 

I’ve been using the service for a few months now and there is much to recommend it, which I'll get into later, but as a graphic designer I’ve been especially impressed with their branding. See below for examples of what I mean:



My produce comes in a box like this every week. Their logo is cute and friendly.


They use all sides of the box to reinforce their brand and message.


One side tells the company story with some humorous copy.


Their website continues the look and feel of the brand well, and is easy to use.

This came in one of the boxes, a card celebrating their 2nd anniversary.



On the inside were some complimentary googly eyes.



I made use of the googly eyes.



It's friendly, humorous and well-designed--really appealing all the way around. Also, it's consistent. The tone and elements you see on their packaging and collateral are repeated on their website and email blasts, and I imagine whatever other marketing materials they may have. These are the types of brand executions we strive for in what we design for our clients; appealing, consistent branding is critical in creating brand advocates. See another one of our recent blog post that talks about this very subject. They have certainly done a good job of making an advocate out of me!

So how is the service? Like I said above, it's been a few of months now since I've started, and while not perfect, it has my loyalty. I'm a believer in what they're trying to do, but if the product isn't any good there's no point. I'm happy to say that I've been happy with about 95% of the produce. The fruits tend to be more hit-or-miss than the vegetables, but even so there was only one time I'd received something that I found to be totally inedible (some plums that never ripened). Their customer service is really responsive, though; when I told them about the less-than stellar produce they credited my account for them promptly. I love how easy it is to customize my weekly box on their website, where you can also schedule delivery holds and access other account services. I've been eating way more vegetables and fruit than I used to, saving money, and helping the environment--what more can I ask for? 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Packaging: 10 Steps to a Better Process

1. Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize. When three people are talking to you, you can’t hear them all. The same is true for design. Visual priority must be established from the very beginning of the design process. If every item is given primary importance, nothing becomes important. The visual priorities are what drive how all creative will be judged. The design firm should include as part of their creative brief, a hierarchy of 5 communication points for the front of the package. This includes 1) brand 2) product name 3) why-to-buy statement 4) feature points 5) product image. 2. Come together. Everyone has an opinion, so clear project objectives are vital to any job. Consensus regarding the creative brief must be obtained from the people expected to judge the package design from within your corporation. Without this consensus, the design process will fall apart. Without clearly stated, agreed-upon objectives, you are not able to provide constructive feedback. As soon as you start t

Let Your Packaging Sell Your Product, Not a Funny Name!

So I ran across this product while I was traveling in NY and needed some earplugs.  I can't sleep without them. Earplugs are notoriously hard to find on shelf so I had to scan many products. I came across this product and got quite a chuckle. I don't think I need to explain why (To be fair, it was awhile ago, and the package design could have changed since then.): Zim's Crack Creme---we can assume that Zim is the pharmacist who created this all-natural herbal wonder cream (creme) for your crack. Or is that really what this means. Surly it couldn't. We design packaging and I couldn't help but analyze this package as I would for a client. The first thing we help our clients do is to prioritize the elements on the front of the package. What is the most important thing to communicate? The name? The brand? The why-to-buy? The features? Obviously, Zim felt the name of the product was most important. But if the name of the product doesn't really convey what it doe

New and Not Necessarily Improved

A story in the March 3, 2009 issue of the LA Times regarding the unfavorably received new Pepsi brand redesign reminded me of another recent unsuccessful redesign—the one for Tropicana orange juice. A few months ago, I was in a Target store buying some orange juice. I usually get the Tropicana brand, and was disappointed when I didn't see any in the cases. I just saw a bunch of unfamiliar cartons that I immediately wrote off as "not Tropicana" and kept looking around. It was only during a second pass that I realized that these new cartons were indeed Tropicana. Wow, I thought, that's a pretty radical new look. Gone were any vestiges of familiarity--the funky old-style logo, and especially the orange with the straw stuck in it. The new carton is dominated by a large shot of a tasteful-looking (not necessarily tasty-looking) glass of orange juice, with the word "Tropicana" in an unfamiliar sans serif font and green color turned 90º clockwise along the side. T