On the epidemic of food waste: Idealized prototypes and the aversion to misshapen fruits and vegetables

•Consumers’ prototypes for fruits and vegetables are biased towards beauty.•Experience with produce cultivation predicts acceptance of misshapen produce.•Aesthetic standards may contribute to the aversion to misshapen produce. Food waste is a significant problem and consumers’ tendency to reject misshapen produce has been identified as a key contributing factor. The current work investigates the implications of consumers incorporating aesthetic beauty into their prototypes—mental renderings—of fruits and vegetables. It is proposed that consumers have idealized prototypes for produce and this impacts the aversion to misshapen produce. The authors draw on prototype theory to predict that consumers’ personal experiences will influence the extent to which their prototypes for these foods have been biased towards aesthetic beauty and, consequently, how they respond to produce that is misshapen. Across three studies, the authors demonstrate that consumers who have direct experience with produce cultivation view produce that is low in aesthetic beauty as more prototypical, less disgusting, and more desirable. This work contributes to the food waste literature by offering novel insights into the psychological basis of the aversion to misshapen produce. These findings also present important implications for food policy.