It's another surprising way to reduce food waste and score a delicious meal inexpensively: ordering leftover food with Too Good To Go. The app started early this year in Amsterdam and has now also been launched in Utrecht. Rotterdam will follow soon
Consumers can use the app to order and collect surplus food from shops, restaurants and hotels at up to 70 per cent discount. Business owners can use the app daily to indicate which products they have left over in their shops. That way, food is not thrown away at the end of the day, but goes to paying customers. These can then order a magic box containing surplus products from shops. It is a surprise each time what is in the box.
- Good To Go aims to eliminate food waste in this way. Every meal that ends up on the plate instead of in the bin saves about two kilos of CO2. Too Good To Go has already saved more than 2,500 meals since its launch in the Netherlands.
"We make the difference through collaboration. We bring entrepreneurs with the challenge of waste together with local residents who want to do their bit to reduce food waste," said Joost Rietveld, country manager of Too Good To Go Netherlands.
The impact on food waste in retail and foodservice will eventually also lead to more awareness at home, Rietveld expects. Wasting food is unnecessary and high on the agenda. We waste between 1.7 and 2.5 million tonnes of food a year in the Netherlands. Globally, a third of all food produced ultimately does not end up on our plates.
The Too Good To Go app, which is free to download from the App Store and Google Play Store, currently lists over 100 locations in Amsterdam and Utrecht where consumers can order and pay for food. These include branches of organic supermarket Ekoplaza, Vlaamsch Broodhuys, food market Landmarkt and meal shop Stach, two formulas that work with regional suppliers. The restaurants Kukeluku and Eerlijk Amsterdam and Oma's Soep also list what they have left in their kitchens in the app. Oma's Soep prepares soups from surplus batches of vegetables from supermarkets and greengrocers and delivers them to local institutions, businesses and consumers' homes.
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Expanding to nationwide
The app aims to partner with shops and restaurants in most Dutch cities in all provinces by the end of this year, drastically reducing the amount of wasted food in the Netherlands.
Too Good To Go makes it easy for everyone to contribute to less wasting, for both entrepreneurs and consumers. Joost Rietveld: "By making preventing food waste as easy and accessible as possible, everyone can contribute and we can really make an impact."
About Too Good To Go
Too Good To Go, founded at the end of 2015 in Denmark by a group of friends, has grown into an international company dedicated to preventing food waste in Denmark, the UK, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland and now the Netherlands.
The concept aims to enable consumers to buy good food at low prices that would otherwise be thrown away. Customers simultaneously save money on good food while participating businesses earn extra on products they would otherwise have to waste.
