Misfits Market.
Somebody grew this.
The apples had already done their part.
In Abhi Ramesh’s account of the trip that led to Misfits Market, the revealing part of apple picking was the fruit being put aside. At a Pennsylvania farm, he noticed apples separated from the rest and asked the farmer what would happen to them. Some might find buyers. Others would be composted, discarded, or fed to animals.
The apples had grown. Someone had tended the trees. The difficulty came afterward, in finding a destination for fruit that did not match a buyer’s expectations.
That is an interesting place for a business to begin: with work that has already been done and value that has not yet found its way to somebody.
Ramesh founded Misfits Market in 2018. In a 2021 account of the beginning, he recalled building the first website himself a few weeks after the orchard visit. The question had acquired a practical next step. There was now somewhere for a customer to order.
I admire that movement from noticing to arranging. Seeing a problem is an important start. Making it possible for a grower and a household to transact requires a different kind of attention. The fruit needs a buyer, a box, a route, and somewhere to go before its time runs out.
A farmer mentions the broccoli.
One of the company’s most useful stories is considerably smaller than a national mission statement.
On its About Us page, Misfits Market describes its relationship with Lakeside Organic Gardens, a California grower whose vegetables it has carried since 2018. Lakeside told the company that broccoli florets trimmed during routine fieldwork were going to waste. The two worked together to package them as Sweet Broccoli Tops.
I like the conversation implied by that account. A supplier has something to explain beyond the next order. A buyer listens closely enough to see a product in it.
The name does a little work, too. Sweet Broccoli Tops tells a cook what is in the package. It lets the food arrive with an identity of its own, ready to be considered for dinner.
A farm relationship can create knowledge that a product list never contains. Someone knows what gets trimmed, what comes in unevenly, what is excellent but difficult to place. That knowledge matters because the opportunity may be visible for only a short time. Food is not inclined to wait for the next quarterly meeting.
Broken rice. A perfectly reasonable pudding.
The same imagination appears farther along the food chain, where a leftover ingredient can become the beginning of another maker’s recipe.
Misfits Market’s account of its 2023 Upcycling Food Challenge describes a collaboration with the Upcycled Food Association. Petit Pot was among the selected makers, with rice pudding using broken rice kernels. The company’s 2026 product awards returned to that pudding and the milling fragments behind it.
The thought has an appealing kitchen logic. A kernel’s suitability depends on what you intend to cook. Once a maker is thinking about pudding, the question changes.
There is skill in making that change useful. Identifying an available ingredient is one part of the work. Developing something people would want to eat, producing it consistently, and making it available are further contributions. The maker deserves a place in the story alongside the rescued ingredient.
I find this kind of collaboration particularly encouraging because it gives expertise something new to work on. A producer understands an ingredient. A food maker understands a preparation. A retailer can help the finished idea meet an audience. Each brings knowledge the others need.
Dinner gets a vote.
There is a particular optimism involved in buying an unfamiliar vegetable. In the shopping moment, we are imaginative, organized people who will absolutely look up that recipe. By Thursday, the vegetable and the calendar may have developed different plans.
That is why the ordinary household belongs in this story. The next stage of a food’s journey happens in a kitchen with its own constraints: preferences, time, appetite, and the person who has decided that today they no longer like zucchini.
Misfits Market has grown beyond its original produce offering into a broader grocery business. Its public assortment includes pantry items, meat, seafood, and products from smaller makers alongside rescued and upcycled foods. Different products have different reasons for being there.
I see something valuable in that breadth. An unfamiliar ingredient can sit beside something a household already knows how to use. Discovery becomes part of an ordinary basket, with familiar meals around it.
The company’s 2023 review also noted readers’ interest in produce-storage advice and freezing guides. Those are modest subjects with a useful destination. They follow the food beyond the sale.
A storage tip rarely gets the attention given to a new product launch. Yet for the person who would otherwise lose half a bunch of herbs, it may be the most useful thing the business says that week.
The name leaves room for a second look.
In an early interview, republished in 2025, Ramesh explained the choice of Misfits Market as a name and described ambitions beyond visually unusual produce. The idea concerned inefficiencies across the food system.
Misfit is a relational word. It asks what something failed to fit into. An apple can fail a size specification and still have a place in someone’s kitchen. An ingredient can be awkward for one production process and useful in another.
The name invites that second look without requiring a lecture before every purchase. It has enough play in it for an unusual shape and enough room for the people developing new uses.
That flexibility is something I appreciate as a writer. The broccoli story and the rice-pudding story belong to the same company, but they retain their own people, circumstances, and work. A strong central idea can hold several particular stories without sanding them into one.
Somebody grew this.
The part of Misfits Market’s work that stays with me is the respect it can give to effort already invested.
A grower has spent time bringing food into being. A maker has learned what an ingredient can do. A household is trying to put together another meal. Connecting those forms of effort is useful work.
This is why I admire the company’s founding question and the collaborations that followed it. They direct attention toward possibilities that are easy to pass by: the produce in another bin, the trimmed florets, the fragments that belong in a different recipe.
There is pleasure here as well as purpose. A good food story should leave room for appetite. The customer can care about the route an ingredient took and still be chiefly delighted that there is pudding.
Somebody grew it. Somebody found a use for it. Somebody gets to enjoy it. There is a great deal worth doing between those three sentences.
A few things about the food.
Who founded Misfits Market?
Abhi Ramesh founded Misfits Market in 2018 after a Pennsylvania farm visit prompted him to investigate why edible produce was struggling to find buyers.
Does Misfits Market sell only imperfect produce?
No. Its assortment has expanded to include pantry goods, meat, seafood, products from smaller makers, and rescued and upcycled items alongside produce. Sourcing circumstances vary by product.
What are Sweet Broccoli Tops?
Misfits Market describes Sweet Broccoli Tops as a product developed with Lakeside Organic Gardens to sell florets trimmed during routine fieldwork that were going to waste.
How does upcycled food fit into the story?
Upcycling uses ingredients that might otherwise go to waste or lesser outcomes in another food product. The article discusses Petit Pot rice pudding made with broken rice kernels as one documented example.
More stories worth staying for.
There is another kitchen at the beginning of Bunnie Cakes’ story. Or explore more companies I admire.
If you enjoy this way of looking at people and their work, meet Rob Urban.
Sources & perspective
Independent appreciation based on the linked company accounts, including the founder’s retrospective, Lakeside partnership, upcycling challenge, product assortment, and 2026 product awards. Historical accounts are identified in the story. Interpretations are my own; this is not a firsthand product review.