No Waste Army launches pop-up to sell surplus vegetables

No Waste Army, the MT/Sprout Startup of the Year 2025, is hosting a pop-up store at Utrecht Centraal to combat food waste. The initiative aims to sell 100,000 kilograms of vegetables in a single week.

The store focuses on ‘wonky vegetables’—produce that is perfectly edible but fails to meet the aesthetic standards of traditional retailers. Examples include oversized potatoes, small pears, and irregularly shaped cucumbers. Such items are typically diverted to livestock feed or biogas digesters rather than being sold to consumers.

In addition to selling fresh produce, No Waste Army processes surplus fruits and vegetables into shelf-stable products like juices, sauces, crackers, and chips for tens of thousands of subscribers. The pop-up event allows customers to purchase bags of rejected produce or donate items to food banks.