In 2015, a Denmark-based company launched with two goals: combat food waste and fight climate change. Almost a decade later, the app, called Too Good to Go has saved more than 250 million meals and have taken the equivalent of 135,000 cars off the road by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to the app’s estimate. And for you, it means getting restaurant takeout for cheap.
How does Too Good To Go work?
The app, available at participating grocery stores, markets, and restaurants in 17 countries, allows users to purchase end-of-day leftovers — food that otherwise would end up in a landfill — at a 60% to 80% discount.
If restaurants in your town or city are participating, they will show up on the map in the app. When you scroll through the options, you will see a timeslot of when you can pick up the bag and how much it is (typically between $4 and $9). You select the restaurant and timeslot you want to reserve, typically towards closing time, and then head to the spot to pick it up when the time comes.
Here’s the catch though; you don’t know what you will be getting. Customers purchase a “surprise bag,” which contains an assortment of unsold products from the day, but the restaurant decides what to include based on what’s leftover from the day. That is the trade-off, however, for getting such a steep discount on pizza slices, bagels, produce, and baked goods.
After purchasing the surprise bag, the app adds the purchase to the customer’s lifetime climate impact tally, which calculates the amount of carbon emissions the user prevented. Users can also see a map with locations of surprise bags nearby and reserve them ahead of time.
What’s the Too Good To Go’s impact?
When food sits in a landfill, it emits methane — a greenhouse gas that contributes to the Earth’s warming atmosphere. By reducing food waste, the app also slashes emissions from land and water used to grow the food and the gas emissions from powering trucks and factories that prepare and transport food.
More than a third of food grown in the U.S. goes uneaten — a percentage that has increased in the last five years. Too Good to Go chips away at this statistic by providing accessible options for businesses to reduce food waste.