Source: TheAge.com.au

EU nations on Wednesday gave the green light Monday for bent cucumbers and other “wonky” fruit and vegetables to be sold in supermarkets and elsewhere, as part of a drive to cut red tape.

“This is a happy day indeed for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot, and other amusingly shaped fruits and vegetables,” said European Commission spokesman Michael Mann.

“Rules governing the size and shape of fruit and vegetables will be consigned to history”, the commission said in a statement.

In all, marketing standards for 26 fruits and vegetables are being scrapped, paving the way for the return to shopping trolleys of forked carrots, onions that are less than two thirds covered with skin and the bent cucumbers among other deviant vegetables.

The rules had been derided as “bonkers” by the likes of major British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, while major agricultural nations such as France have argued that scrapping the restrictions will lead to a fall in prices and thereby hit farmers.

“This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot,” said EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

“It’s a concrete example of our drive to cut unnecessary red tape. We simply don’t need to regulate this sort of thing at EU level. It is far better to leave it to market operators.”

She added that in the current climate of high food prices and economic woes “consumers should be able to choose from the widest range of products possible. It makes no sense to throw perfectly good products away, just because they are the ‘wrong’ shape.”

Representatives of most EU countries voted against the rule change, but not by the overwhelming “qualified majority” required to stop it going through, a commission spokesman said.