Fruit & veg don't have to be perfect after all

Misshapen fruit and vegetables may be sold across the European Union from next year after member states voted on Wednesday to scrap the bloc’s much-maligned standards for size and shape.

Bent cucumbers, nobbly carrots and undersized melons can be sold by retailers from next July following the approval of proposals by the EU’s farm chief to ditch EU marketing standards which set permitted sizes, lengths and "bendiness" for produce.

"This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the nobbly carrot," EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said in a statement.