Ugly vegetables gain acceptance in European Union

Wednesday was a historic day for European vegetables liberating them from the bureaucratic rules that have governed their appearance for the last two decades. The shape of fruits and vegetables, has for long been the unlikely rallying force behind much Euroscepticism, with British tabloids regularly accusing Brussels’ bureaucrats of having nothing better to do than dictate the length of a banana or shape of a cucumber.

The rules in question set specific marketing standards for 26 types of fruit and vegetables and their repeal on Wednesday is intended to be part of a larger drive to cut EU-generated red tape.

“July 1 marks the return to our shelves of the curved cucumber and the knobbly carrot,” said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development. “More seriously, this is a concrete example of our drive to cut unnecessary red tape. We don’t need to regulate this sort of thing at EU level. It is far better to leave it to market operators.” Dropping rules that only allow beautiful-looking produce to be sold in shops will reduce waste by allowing farmers sell more of their crop the Commissioner added.

The EU’s stringent criteria for the size, shape, lumpiness and curvature of fruits and vegetables had been devised in order to standardise produce on supermarket shelves across the territory.

But diktats like the one that stipulated a string of onions must have 16 bulbs to qualify as a “string” epitomised the kind of over-regulation that has given the EU a bad name, particularly in Eurosceptic Britain.

Even after the scrapping of the rules, 10 kinds of fruits and vegetables including popular ones like apples, strawberries and tomatoes will remain subject to certain restrictions. Non-complying “ugly” examples of these will have to be labeled as nonstandard.