The Danish food waste preventer, Too Good To Go, enables restaurants and food shops to sell surplus food at a discount, via an app that has already saved 36 million meals!
The food sector is highly criticised for its significant pressure on the environment. One of the important factors contributing to the high pressure is food waste. In fact, one third of all food produced is wasted, which corresponds to 8% of the current global CO2 emissions! This is an issue that Danish Too Good To Go has decided to combat. The company has developed an app that functions as a mediator between food outlets, such as supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants, which on the one side want to sell surplus food that would otherwise have been wasted, and customers on the other side, who would like to buy the food at a discount. In practice, a participating food outlet estimates the amount of surplus food during the day and registers it on offer, in so-called “Magic Bags” via the Too Good To Go app. Customers can then reserve the bags and pick them up at the outlet, typically around closing time. Since 2016, the app has attracted more than 44,000 food outlets in 15 countries and has accrued more than 22 million users, globally. In Denmark alone, over 2,500 food outlets and around 1.9 million users have joined the app and saved more than 5 million meals, corresponding to 12,765 tonnes of CO2. Thus, a win-win-win is created through the digital food solution, providing food outlets a way to sell surplus food; offering customers an opportunity to buy food at discounts; and significantly decreasing the food sector’s environmental pressure.
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Too Good To Go and its fight against food waste