FARMERSVILLE, Calif. (KGPE/KSEE) – The Ugly Company was started five years ago by Ben Moore, after returning home from the Army.

He then started driving a truck hauling fresh fruit during the day, and hauling what he calls ugly fruit that the farmers couldn’t sell at night.

“We were just dumping it out because there was nowhere to take it and so we’d dump about six to eight million pounds a year,” said Moore.

After seeing just how much fruit was being wasted, he started to think about other ways the fruit could still be used.

“It was a long difficult process right but it really just started like anything else one step at a time and I had this vision of hey there’s got to be something better to do with the fruit than throw it out,” said Moore.

That ugly fruit goes through a process in the Ugly Company’s factory in Farmersville where the fruit is washed, sorted, sized, and pitted. From there the fruit is dried and becomes the snacks you see on the shelf.

The method also includes some techniques his grandma from Sweden used years ago.

“She’d wash the fruit, slice it thin, then dry it on the roof of the house. So we have a little different set up than a roof drying set up right, but it’s the same exact concept because I grew up eating dried fruit that didn’t have added sugars, or added ingredients or anything like that,” said Moore.

The Ugly Company processes about 40,000 pounds of fruit a day, and so far this year they have already run 1.8 million pounds of different fruits through the factory.

The Ugly Company sources its fruit from four different packing sheds and about 40 different farmers from here in the Central Valley supply those sheds.

But aside from being locally sourced, the Ugly Company also offers a variety of flavor options.

“You know most people have never even heard of a dried white nectarine before, no one had a dried peach, so we have really unique flavoring and offerings of fruit so that’s awesome,” said Moore.

For him it’s not only a way to practice healthy snacking, the impact is far greater than that.

“What we do with our product is really empower people at home to say “Hey you can have a healthy snack that is really awesome and great”, but you’re truly helping farmers prevent food waste at their farm and that’s a really powerful thing,” said Moore.

Each bag of ugly dried fruit is equal to about a pound and a half of fruit that otherwise would have been thrown away. 

To order online or to find a store that carries the Ugly Company’s dried fruit you can visit https://www.theuglyco.com/.