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Forty percent of edible produce is wasted because of consumers' aversion toward esthetical imperfections related to size, shape, and blemish for produce. This phenomenon has huge implications in terms of both environmental sustainability and food security, and calls for the development of interventions that could facilitate the sale of products which would otherwise go to waste. This research provides an explanation for why transforming the physical state of imperfect produce—that is, by physically processing it and turning it into other products (e.g., juices)—is a successful strategy in this sense. More specifically, when imperfect produce is transformed, the new processed product (e.g., juice) belongs to a different conceptual category and thus is perceived as more prototypical and a good example of this new category. We show that higher perceptions of prototypicality in turn lead to more positive preferences. We …