The thriving business of ugly fruits and vegetables

In August 2019, Oriol Aldomà, a primary school teacher, visited his friend Marc Ibós at their family fruit business in Bellpuig, a small town of 5,000 in northeast Spain. Aldomà watched as customers picked through the fruit selection to find the nicest-looking pieces. “Can I take that bucket of apples? They’re still good to eat, right?” he asked. “Of course,” said Ibós. “We’re going to throw them away.” That’s when the idea was born for TALKUAL, the business they started together six months later. TALKUAL has been incredibly successful, doubling its turnover every year, while battling the tyranny of food aesthetics and teaching consumers how to appreciate the inner beauty of ugly fruit.

The two friends wanted to do something that would have a positive impact on the world, even if it was just something small, like reducing local food waste. A child dies of hunger every 15 seconds, while the world wastes 570 million tons of good food every year, according to the U.S. Food and Agriculture Organization.

The produce had to be local, the transportation sustainable, the packaging plastic-free and recyclable, and the price fair to the farmers. They only had €6,000 ($6,600) to invest, half of which went to fees for establishing a limited liability company. They intended to use the Ibós family’s facilities and leverage their knowledge about the fruit business. “It’s easy for me to communicate with producers because I’m a producer myself. When you’ve got all this surplus, you start wondering what to do with it,” said Ibós. The two new business partners researched similar businesses and found a few in the U.S., but none in Spain.

“The hardest part in the beginning was convincing the traditional farmers to get on board. They either didn’t get it or didn’t want to be a part of it. Sometimes they even sent us some of their rotten stuff!” said Ibós. TALKUAL purchases fruits and vegetables from small farmers across Spain. After conducting quality control at their Bellpuig warehouse, they package and deliver the products to customers throughout the country. About 90% of their customers are individuals, while the remaining 10% are companies like Alsa and Decathlon, who distribute the produce to their employees. Each box contains a variety of seasonal products, and customers can choose from different sizes. A seven-kilo (15 pounds) box costs approximately €20 ($21.50).

Even though they were an online business, they didn’t prioritize marketing for the first two years. “We were growing at a good pace organically,” said Aldomà. “The media actually promoted us right from the beginning. A local radio station did a report on us, and then bigger and bigger stations came. We’ve already been featured in 80 or 90 publications.” Then came the social media influencers. “Some famous influencers visited and talked about us on their social media, which helped us grow a lot. Especially Anna Castillo — the actress — her post was a real turning point.”

Brand ambassadors

TALKUAL now has brand ambassadors on social media and they pay for some ads on Instagram (91,000 followers), where they post photos, stories and reels. In 2020, gross sales amounted to €350,000 ($385,000). Sales more than doubled to €800,000 ($880,000) the next year and jumped to €1.3 million ($1.43 million) in 2022. TALKUAL expects to close 2023 with nearly €3 million ($3.3 million) in sales and double that number in 2024. The team of two has grown to 21 employees, including five individuals at risk of social exclusion.

TALKUAL was a finalist in Spain’s Start-Up Awards XXI (a CaixaBank initiative) this year and received a €12,000 grant from the European Digital Kit technology program. Now Aldomà and Ibós are setting new goals for the company. “We plan to create a virtual marketplace — perhaps next year — to sell environmentally-friendly products such as cooking oil, jam, eggs… we’ll start with nuts. Our aim is to expand to other countries as we continue to grow.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition