Full Harvest, a global produce marketplace for commercial buyers and sellers, announced May 2 it had expanded its online marketplace to handle all grades of produce, from USDA Grade 1 to surplus and imperfect food products. The company said the expanded digitization effort will help fight against global food waste problems by bringing the entire produce market online, creating greater efficiency while simultaneously expanding the organization’s reach to retailers, food service companies and direct-to-consumer distributors.

The World Wildlife Federation estimates that 2.5 billion tonnes of food (40% of all food grown) goes to waste each year. However, Full Harvest’s says that, thanks to its food waste reduction efforts, the business has helped growers sell over 85 million pounds of surplus and imperfect produce to date.

"Everything edible should be consumed,” said Christine Moseley, founder and CEO of Full Harvest. “We are on a mission to eliminate food waste in the produce ecosystem and create a more sustainable produce industry. While imperfect and surplus produce was an important first step, the entire produce industry needs to move online to maximize efficiency and eliminate waste."