Consumer concerns about the high cost of food appear to be helping drive the growth of an app designed to promote sustainability.
Too Good To Go, which provides a rapidly expanding service that allows consumers to buy small amounts of surplus food from retailers, cafes, and restaurants at discounted prices, has become widely available across the U.S. during the last few years, and has its sights set on becoming even more ubiquitous.
“We cover about 50 percent of the population, but there is still a ton more expansion that needs to be done,” Sarah Soteroff, senior public relations manager at Too Good To Go, told SFA News Daily. “Most recently we expanded to Colorado and Arizona, and we are always expanding in the markets where we currently operate.”
The company launched in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2016, and made its U.S. debut in 2020, launching in the New York City market. It has since grown to become available in 27 U.S. cities in 15 states. It plans to expand to six additional markets in 2024.
In addition to its ongoing geographic expansion, the company continues to refine its capabilities. It plans to begin allowing users to screen for more dietary preferences, for example.
Among the key learnings the company has had in the last few years has been that both consumers and businesses are highly motivated by the financial benefits of using the app. Too Good To Go is positioned as a vehicle to reduce waste—restaurants and retailers can sell perishable goods that might have otherwise been thrown away, and customers can buy them to save them from the trash.
However, the ability for businesses to easily earn incremental sales through the app and the ability for consumers to save money on food items has proven to be key, especially during the inflationary environment of the last few years.
“On the consumer side, we never used to talk about price,” said Soteroff. “We really were focused on the sustainability angle. Yes, the byproduct is saving food and sustainability, but the real thing that they want is food at a discounted price, because food costs are going up so much.”
She said the company calculates that consumers who use the app have saved about $32 million on food spending, while the company’s business partners have driven more than $101 million in incremental revenues.
Part of the appeal of the app lies in its user-friendly experience, for both consumers and businesses, she explained. Businesses can simply set a certain number of “surprise bags” of food to be available each day at a certain price, to be picked up within a specific time window, and the offer will automatically appear each day. The businesses can fill the bags with whatever leftovers they might have, such as baked goods, prepared foods, produce, and shelf-stable items nearing their expiration date.
Consumers don’t know what specific products they will receive, which allows the businesses to fill their bags with whatever happens to be surplus that day. Baked goods are the top category in the app, as bakeries, delis, bodegas, and grocery stores seek to unload the surplus products they baked that morning.
Too Good to Go charges the businesses a fee of $1.79 per transaction, and the businesses generally charge anywhere from $3.99 to $8.99 or more for the surprise bags, which might contain anything from a handful of muffins and bagels, an assortment of hot foods leftover from a buffet, an assortment of pizza slices and calzones, or perhaps some combination of prepared salads or sandwiches. Consumers rate the bags and provide feedback, so other users can judge the value of the bags that each business provides before they order, even without knowing the specific contents.
Businesses can also view the feedback that users provide through a dashboard, which also provides data on number of visits and other information. Too Good To Go counsels its business partners to help them optimize the experience for customers who use the app, whether by adjusting the price, the products offered, or the time window for pickup, Soteroff explained.
“They might start with a baked goods bag, then add in a produce bag, or add in a prepared foods bag, or they can add in specialty items—cakes, chocolate, things like that,” said Soteroff. “We work with partners to get as many different categories as we can on there.”
In Too Good To Go’s 2023 Impact Report, the company cited multiple retail and cafe partners, including supermarket operator Metro in Canada and 7-Eleven in the U.S. Among the specialty shops was Katherine Anne Confections in Chicago, which offers leftover melted chocolate through the app.
“We used to grimace, close our eyes, and pour it down the drain,” the company said in the Impact Report. “Now, we can pour it into cups and sell it via Too Good To Go–folks enjoy it like pudding right out of the cup or stir it into coffee for mochas.”
In New York City, Too Good To Go partners with a variety of chain and independent businesses, including Le Pain Quotidien, Morton Williams, Eli’s Essentials, and several other cafes, pizza restaurants, bodegas, and grocery stores.
Too Good To Go said in its 2023 Impact Report that last year the app saved 121,686,720 meals from going to waste globally (each bag is counted as a meal), a 46 percent increase over 2022. It added 21 million new users globally in 2023, and now has more than 85 million users in 17 countries.
Last year the company also began rolling out a new program in Europe called Too Good To Go Parcels, which allows manufacturers to ship surplus inventory directly to consumers at discounted prices. That program has rolled out in five countries: France, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy.
In addition, last year the company piloted the Too Good To Go Platform, a digital tool that seeks to help its business partners reduce their food waste. It includes modules for expiration date management, recommendations, in-store discounting, the consumer marketplace, and charitable donations.
This year, Too Good To Go is also planning to continue expanding its “Look-Smell-Taste” product labeling campaign, which seeks to reduce household waste by teaching customers to look beyond the “best by” or “sell by” date labels before discarding a product. The program is slated to roll out across Canada, and Too Good To Go is also partnering with Wageningen University, Unilever, and Food Waste Free United to further measure the label’s impact on consumer behavior at the household level.