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I'm looking at a sentence on the side of a box of Imperfect Produce (TM.) It reads:

"1 in 5 fruits and veggies grown in the U.S. don't meet the strict cosmetic standards of grocery stores, often causing them to go to waste."

My issue is with the verb "don't." I would have used "doesn't." Is there any sense in which "don't" can be correct here? I can see getting confused here, since "fruits", "veggies", "standards", and "stores" are all plural and floating about. But still, "1" is the subject.

I thought perhaps that the construction "1 in 5" was somehow collectively plural, since they don't really mean just one plant, but 1 fifth of all the plants, so it's really a lot of veggies they're talking about. I don't think so, but this is my question: Can this construction be correct? I note that later in the sentence "them" appears, so at least in the author's head, he's talking about lots of plants.

FYI, Imperfect Produce gathers up these ugly plants and will deliver them to my door at a cost less than the sexy plants available at the HEB. So I have a number of these boxes sitting around my house, displaying the offending sentence.

B. Goddard
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  • (As well as asking a new question, you can edit this one to explain how the nominated duplicate doesn't help) – Andrew Leach Mar 15 '19 at 19:59
  • If there were only 5 fruit grown in the USA, then you might be right! (But then I would expect it to say "1 of the 5 fruit and veg ...") As it is, it is referring to the millions of tons of grapes, apples, potatoes etc. so "don't" is correct. In other words "1 fifth" is the subject. –  Mar 15 '19 at 20:02
  • More importantly (but off topic for Stack Exchange) the "misshapen fruit go to waste" thing is a myth. The producers are, like any other business, concerned about efficiency. Any fruit or vegetables that cannot be sold for cosmetic reasons go to make juice, soup, pie filling, etc. The waste problems are at the other end of the food chain... –  Mar 15 '19 at 20:04

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