Can Imperfect Foods Really Save Your Grocery Budget? Honest Review + Coupon Code (2021)

The imperfection of food and products literally inspires Imperfect Foods. These imperfect foods are usually rejected in the grocery standards because of scratches, irregular shapes, or colors, and most of them go to waste. But, we all know that these imperfections are uncontrollable and unpredictable in farming, so Imperfect Foods offers the best solution!

Imperfect buy those imperfect and overproduced products and sell them at a lower price to lessen the food waste in the United States. Besides the environmental impact, they are also in partnership with different non-profit organizations making social changes through feeding and hunger programs. With that, I made a list of reasons below to help YOU see why I think Imperfect Foods is pretty cool!

Imperfect Foods Update (2021)

Yup, still a royal user of Imperfect Food. I can honestly say 2020 was a crap year for the majority of us. Global health pandemic? No one saw that coming. I didn’t think Imperfect Foods was going to be such a stress saver for us at a time like this.

Picture it, first-time mom (me) giving birth at the first week shutdowns started in the U.S. and having every post-partum birth plan completely decimated.

We had no prep – no groceries, no meals, no help, nothing. We thought we had lots of family coming to help so we were unprepared for a pandemic with a troublesome newborn. Imperfect Foods did pull through for us. We didn’t have to leave the house for groceries and it was comparable to prices in stores. It wasn’t about convenience anymore – it was about health, our babies’ health, my elderly father (living with us) health, and our mental health running on 4 hours of sleep.

Anyways, it’s been 2 years since I did an unboxing so I have another unboxing video for you below for 2021.

If you find this review helpful, you can sign-up to get $80 off ($20 off your first 4 orders!) with Imperfect Foods for a limited time!

Why Try Out Imperfect Foods?

But it’s not for everyone. It’s not for people who live 10 minutes from a good grocery store. It’s not for people with time to spare. It’s not for people who like browsing the aisles and big selections. It’s not for people who like superficially perfect produce. If you’re not one of these people, then you should try out Imperfect Foods. Besides helping the US in terms of food waste and the food system, there are lots of reasons to choose and shop at Imperfect Food!

1. Affordable products (especially delivered to your door!)

Like any other grocery store, there are also plenty of variants at Imperfect Foods! They offer you a list of items right in front of you – from produce to home and beauty products. We all know that it’s hard to sell fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats online, but they smoothly handle it because of their organized and systematic approach.

2. Personalized preference and shopping

Upon signing up, they will ask you few questions regarding your preference for your food and groceries, so all you have to do is honestly answer it. When you feel like there is a sudden change of mind while on window shopping, don’t worry because everything is customizable, meaning you can add or remove any item from your cart.

3. Free sign-up and subscription

Every website invites you to sign-up on your first visit, but not all of them are free! Good thing that they offer a free sign-up on Imperfect Foods. You also don’t need to worry about your monthly subscription because there’s none! You’re only charged during your shopping until after the delivery day. No hidden charges apply.

4. Comfortably shop from your home

Doing essential things in the comfort of our homes is so much time-savvy, especially for busy and working mums; thus, effortlessly shopping from our house! You can add and remove items on your cart, depending on what you need and like from their store. Of course, your chosen preference matters, but your shopping cart is really customizable!

5. Organized shopping window and delivery day

Sacrificing their products and service quality is not in their options, so they decided to have an organized shopping window and delivery day according to their customer’s location. Each location has a scheduled shopping window, which means there are days in the weeks which you can’t add or remove products on your cart. The same goes with their delivery day, and you’ll know when to expect their package because it’s on schedule once a week.

6. Convenient door-to-door deliveries

Relax and enjoy while waiting at your doorstep for your weekly groceries! They have scheduled delivery days for each specific place, and charges apply at the end of your weekly shipping window and go through the day after your delivery. You can also skip the delivery for a specific week, but ensure to skip it in the app, or else you’ll automatically receive a weekly grocery.

7. Services, pricing, and delivery fee

They aim to expand their services quickly but currently deliver to most West South Central Region, Midwest, Northeast, and West Coast. The pricing for your groceries is the same in any other grocery store, while the delivery fee ranges from $4.99 to $8.99, depending on your exact location. Again, no hidden charges apply!

Free Delivery From Imperfect Foods

I think starting around 2019 they began a “limited-time” promo that any Imperfect Food order above $60 gets free shipping. We live in Seattle, not sure if it’s nationwide, but I was delighted about free shipping! Who doesn’t love free shipping? Even though $5 for shipping is totally fair, I am a cheap-o haha. Shipping fees were the only string holding me back from saying…”Hey you need this service. Screw Safeway.” But post-pandemic life in 2021, this free shipping promo is still alive and kicking 2 years later. So I’m going to say it, it’s a solid service.

Oh, a lot of people neglect this portion of Imperfect Foods but I appreciate it: they text you. They don’t spam text you with advertisements, which is nice. Imperfect Foods text you only about your order when it will arrive, where is it currently, when you should be expecting it, how far away in minutes it is, and they will text you the moment it lands on your doorstep. This is the only company (besides eCommerce juggernaut Amazon) that has been SOOOO good about keeping customers in the loop on their order. I tip my hats off to that, that’s amazing.

What I Like & Don’t Like About Imperfect Foods (Nit Picking Here…)

No service is perfect. I have to nitpick here so I am going to even though I’ve never had a shipping or delivery issue with them after 18-20 orders. Quality is stellar for “imperfect” – the only thing I want everyone to stay away from is buying grapes. Every. single. time. I’ve ordered grapes in my cart they have come (at least a few) half mashed and partially rotten. I know grapes are hard to pack so it’s probably damaged from transit but yeah.

I don’t have this issue with lemons, apples, oranges, spinach, lettuce, even easily bruised avocados come just fine.

Another thing I don’t like is simply waste. Imperfect Foods has become better about it though since 2 years ago. You can return the ice gel packs and bubble insulators back to Imperfect Foods if you wanted to. Their mission, which is to eliminate food waste and build a better food system for everyone, is being practiced.

Since they rebranded from Imperfect Produce to Imperfect Foods in general, I’ve seen an increase in product selection. Now even carry their own brand of shower gels/shampoos/body butter etc. I did end up buying these haha – you can see in my videos. I’ve tried the Imperfect Foods Avocado & Honey body butter, pretty good! It’s not $400 fancy Sephora HG cream but it’s not the cheapy Walgreens brand quality. It smells just like Bath & Body Works body butters I have and the scent is amazing!

Diversity of foods like produce and meat I give them a B+. The produce section has 85% of the selection as a Safeway. A lot of their items are seasonal so it depends.

They have become good at carrying meat & meatless substitutes. I’d say they carry about 40% of the meat options at a regular Safeway. They have core staples like ground beef, beef chuck, chicken breast, ground chicken, lamb, salmon, tilapia, and tons of their own brand of Imperfect Food sausages…(which are DELICIOUS by the way! Gouda & apple = my favorite non-spicy sausage at a great price. Pedersen’s jalapeno & cheese kielbasa = SOOO good. I can’t make my signature Viet seafood cajun boils without these. We literally had 15 of these sausages in our chest freezer. Lol!)

For meatless substitute products…they have like…120% the selection of my Safeway store lol! I’ve never had jackfruit intimation meat before…was always afraid to try. Has anyone bought the jackfruit meat from Imperfect Foods? Let me know if it’s any good in the comments below!

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If you find this review helpful, you can sign-up to get $20 off with Imperfect Food for a limited time!

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Imperfect Foods Review/Update (2020)

Imperfect Produce expanded itself to Imperfect Foods because their selection has widened to more than just surplus and damaged produce. We still get Imperfect Foods delivery about once a month, not for their “cheap” produce (to be honest, it’s not that cheap.)

We use Imperfect Foods because they have a wide selection of really cool products from snacks to sauces to meat to their own brand of snacks. We LOVE to explore and try these products we’ve never seen before — such as European grade butter, Swiss cream cheese, dark chocolate cherries from Japan, hipster cookies we would have never picked up in stores otherwise, etc.

I love trying out products I’ve never seen in stores – the produce part is an afterthought because we can find cheaper produce at our local Asian market. But their selection of snacks, drinks, bread, butter, chocolates is pretty amazing. Shipping is still $5.99 for any box size which is very reasonable.

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Outdated: Imperfect Produce Review (2018)

Have you heard of Imperfect Produce? Mums rave about it because of the convenience it offers, from saving time in the grocery stores to eliminating food wastes! So I decided to do some research and try them, and I want to share everything I have discovered about Imperfect Food.

Let’s get started!

(I made a mental note to look into Imperfect Produce. That was about 3 months ago. It slipped my mind until last Tuesday I saw an ad online and went, “ooooh, yes, I wanted to try it!”)

(Short opening clip below)

With the $10 off coupon I received, I placed a medium size box (11-13 pounds). My pre-order estimate totaled $14-$16.

Get $10 Coupon (First Order Only!)

The coupon should apply after you confirm the order and confirm your selection for the week.

My actual total came out to be exactly 12 pounds and $14-$15 bucks before $4.99 shipping. So that’s pretty dead-on.

One thing to note…12 pounds INCLUDING the box it shipped in. I think we got 9-10 pounds of actual produce (it was a heavy box).

⭐ Recommended Reads:

• 51 Healthy Frugal Dinner Recipes You Can Make for Under $2
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Why I’m Trying Imperfect Produce

I was interested in trying out Imperfect Produce the very first time I heard about it.

I’ve been very happy with my ThredUp (secondhand clothing) experiences and buying ugly produce seemed like it fit the motif.

If it seems like a good way to conserve and save money, count me in to try.

Plus, it was the ONLY one delivery related app service coming out of Silicon Valley that wasn’t…stupid.

By stupid I mean: wasteful and solving very minimal first world problems that majority of humanity don’t have.

Blue Apron? Pretty stupid, even worst execution.

Flower delivery? Honest to goodness dumb. What kinds of rich morons funds these? I was living in San Francisco when one of these flowery delivery startups launched. I can’t recall the name now but if I ordered a bouquet of flowers through them to be delivered to someone then I get $8 off my first order.

Wow -$8 flower delivery from my phone, my life begins today. *sarcasm* -_- I don’t what to know even say, is it cultural? I think the most impractical, wasteful, overpriced, impersonal way to greet someone is with flower delivery.

What is Imperfect Produce?

Imperfect produce is the general name for fruit and vegetables too cosmetically ugly to ever be allowed into your local grocery store.

(I wish you can do that with people — LOL so so so kidding!)

Imperfect Produce is the name of an Emeryville, California startup that ships you the store’s ugly and unwanted fruits and vegetables. The prices, therefore, should – theoretically – be a little cheaper and save consumers money.

Does it Fight Food Waste orrrr…?

Some people think Imperfect Produce is taking would-be donations to food banks etc., disguising it as Feel Good Purchase, and placing them into high-income families tables instead of poor families who need it.

I personally don’t think that’s true. Americans waste 20 billion pounds of food. That’s B, like as in, Billion. Which means we’re all basically shit heads when it comes to being food frugal.

Food Banks will get their food because there is a lot of imperfect waste to go around. There is enough food going to waste for everyone to get their fill.

The fact that grocery stores can reject produce based on tiny cosmetic imperfections paints how generally spoiled we are as a plentiful nation.

Plus, Imperfect Produce gives 33% off for EBT and SNAP benefit holders. This could be a good alternative for neighborhoods designated as food deserts.

ANYWAYS!

⭐ Recommended Reads:

• Top 14 Reasons Why Some People Don’t Save Money
• 13 Sensible Defining Characteristics Of Upper Middle Class People

Can You Save Money With Imperfect Produce?

So the REAL question is…did it save any money?

I got about 9 pounds or so of the actual product.

Shipping cost is $4.99 per order, which isn’t too bad considering they’re shipping me a box of fruits and veggies (they’re heavy). I guess for the convenience since I don’t have to go produce shopping. That’s just us though, we live car-free so it saves me 30 minutes of work to go back and forth 🙂

Imperfect Produce did not save a significant amount of money after shipping costs. With a coupon, there were minuscule savings. But it didn’t cost an extra arm and a leg to get some really nice quality products without leaving your house.

Your miles may vary depending on what you order.

If you notice on the list, ginger and apples are significantly cheaper buying them through Imperfect Produce than my local grocers.

We didn’t buy avocado (just got a huge bag that day) but 3 count of them on Imperfect Produce goes for $1.59! That’s amazing! Avocados go for about $1/each here in Seattle ON SALE. Boo!

How Is the Quality of Imperfect Produce?

Excellent. The selection was pretty good too – I ordered 10 different things but the selection was probably around 30+ items.

I noted there were more labeled “surplus” than anything wrong with size, color, shape etc. The only thing that was wrong/not fresh was one single grape in the green grapes we got. I consider that normal. Every single bag of grapes I get from the grocery store has at least one busted grape. So it’s pretty much perfect to me 🙂

I tried both the pears, omgosh, so yums! The produce quality tastes better than the stuff my dad buys at the cheap Chinese market. The Chinese supermarket is about the same price but probably from lesser sources. On that front, I’m totally happy with Imperfect Produce.

Imperfect Tips & Strategies

*Familiarize yourself with local prices vs prices on Imperfect Produce. If I do it over again, I would double check the Asian pears, Anjou pears, avocado, beets, and grapes. They’re cheaper than my local grocers AND they taste better.

*Your miles will definitely vary. They need your zip code so check if the service is available in your area 🙂

*Buy ROOT vegetables, they’re easier to transport and takes longer to expire.

*Variations are unclear sometimes. I ordered beats and they look like those super red beets in the photo but they’re actually a slightly different variety of striped yellow beets. No real harm but just be mindful of variations.

Imperfect Produce Pros & Cons

Pro:

*Effortless to shop!

*Size choices great for all family sizes (from small to x-large).

*Fair selection of conventional + organic produce.

*Overnight delivery keeps things fresh and nice.

*Box was well chilled.

*Box had no padding material…that’s a pro/con depending on where you stand on padding material vs the environment thing.

*Not expensive.

Con:

*Not exceedingly inexpensive either.

*Shipping costs.

*You don’t get full control of what you get (ie. variations are sometimes unclear.)

*Limited delivery (only on Fridays).

*Limited location to only certain zip codes.

*Weekly or bi-monthly delivery schedules. Little customization.

⭐ Cheap Eats Reads:

• The Cheapest Asian Dish Ever: Made From Free Leftover Pho Garnishes
• 21 Cheap Pantry Staples List on a Limited Budget
• Unique Ways to Save Money on Groceries (Lessons After 6 Months of Receipts!)
• Eat Ugly, Save Money? Imperfect Produce Review (+ FREE COUPON)

Who Would Imperfect Produce Benefit?

For those trying to trick themselves into eating and buying more fruits and vegetables, it’s a great service because when it’s in your house, you will reach for it.

In the grocery stores they have tons of other temptations to lead you away.

We don’t have a car so hefty produce(like melons and beets) are a rarer treat.

Families without cars or living in a food desert would benefit from Imperfect Produce too.

Those on EBT/food stamp benefits or anyone looking to shave a dollar off their grocery bill can benefit from Imperfect Produce too. None of the products I received was old and very few of them had detectable imperfections.

But if you live near many stores with great produce selection then it’s probably not worth getting Imperfect Produce because it isn’t much cheaper at all. Plus, you don’t have exact control over the variation selection or shipping schedule.

Would I Use Imperfect Again?

[Updated] Imperfect Foods have become better and better in the transformative 3 years I’ve been shopping with them. They have been up and running without fail so it’s not another dying Tech Startup. To sweeten the pot, they even started the $60 order + free shipping perk with their own fleet of delivery drivers and trucks! I do recommend them because the 2021 Imperfect Food has improved so much over my experiences in 2019 when they were still Imperfect Produce.

Ehhh. Yes maybe in winter when we’re snowed in but it’s not much of a money saver. The medium box would last a family of 2 for 2 weeks and a medium box will cost about $20ish+.

I said I needed to reach for more vegetables in my life than red meat. Most produce from Imperfect is a littttttle bit cheaper than getting it local from our grocers. The shipping cost balances it out any savings pretty much, except I don’t have to lift a finger. Without the coupon, I wouldn’t have jumped on it.

Get $10 Coupon (First Order Only!)

The coupon should apply after you confirm the order and confirm your selection for the week.