A NEW class at the Dorset County Show this summer will celebrate ugly fruit.

The two day celebration of Dorset food and farming on Saturday, September 6 and Sunday, September 7 is doing its bit to prevent perfectly edible fruit and vegetables going to waste.

Nationally more than 40 per cent of fruit and vegetable crops fail to make it onto shop shelves on the basis of their looks alone.

Even if they are fresh and delicious on the inside, they are often rejected because of their shape, size and colour and they do not conform to our ideas of what the particular fruit or vegetable should look like.

At the Dorset County Show a new class has been introduce to the horticulture competition in a bid to educate consumers about misshapen fruit and veg.

Show secretary Sam Mackenzie Green said: “There are no boundaries to this class, other than visual non-conformity and the more extreme the better.

“We’re looking for the complete antithesis to the fruit and vegetable norm – double heads knobs and protuberances will not only be most welcome but will also score the points.

“‘Ugliness’ in the context of its definition as ‘something not conventionally pretty or attractive’, is going to be celebrated, worshipped and adored in this year’s horticulture tent, rather than rejected and cast out.”

She added: “Our mission is to persuade our show-going public that misshapen fruit and veg can be just as tasty as the cream of the crop and that beauty, in this instance, should be in the taste buds of the beholder.”

The ‘Ugly Fruit’ class will be an open class, open to all types of fruit and veg and can be shop bought or found, as well as home-grown.

To enter the Ugly Fruit class, visit dorag.showbiz-software.co.uk/semt/ls_entry_forms.aspx Early bird tickets for the Dorset County Show are now on sale for £10 per adult and children go free.

For tickets and more information about the event visit dorsetcountyshow.co.uk