Author Topic: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe and US  (Read 2598 times)

Hula Hoop

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1762
  • Location: Italy
I just downloaded an app called "Too Good to Go". It's an anti food waste app that according to the internet exists only in  Germany, France, UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway and Austria.  Basically, rather than throwing out food at the end of the day, restaurants, cafes, supermarkets etc put a "Magic Box" of food on the app and you pay a fee (between 2-5 Euros normally) to pick up the box at a certain time.  Earlier today I picked up a Euro 4 "magic box" from a bakery near us.  The box contained a huge amount of food.  A ton of white and red pizza, around 15 bread rolls of all different types and several croissants.  We ate the pizza for lunch and the croissants for dessert and froze most of the rolls for future work lunches.  I've reserved a box for tomorrow (for Euro 2) at 2pm at a local vegetarian/vegan caffe that has delicious food.  No idea what will be in the box but I'm sure it will be yummy and will be a nice lunch.  I'm also thinking of signing up for a box from a local Indian restaurant soon as i've been craving Indian food.

For my fellow European mustachians, I highly recommend it this app. It's mustachian as you save money and also the planet.

ETA - a friend in New York tells me that the app is also available in the US.  She loves it in NYC.  Apparently it is also expanding into other US ciities.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2021, 02:48:43 PM by Hula Hoop »

MaybeBabyMustache

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5356
    • My Wild Ride to FI
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2021, 02:32:43 PM »
Not in Europe, but this sounds amazing! Like you said, a great combo of environmentally friendly & frugal.

havregryn

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 639
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2021, 02:43:28 PM »
Oh I envy you so much, I keep hearing of these apps, but NOTHING ever comes to Luxembourg :(

I also recently discovered that Zalando in Belgium and Sweden (probably more too, these are just that I would read about) now has a second-hand section where you can get really good deals on high quality clothes. That too is unavailable to customers in Luxembourg. We must die in our hyperconsumerist bubble.

Hula Hoop

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1762
  • Location: Italy
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2021, 02:52:11 PM »
@havregryn sorry to hear that you don't have these things in Luxembourg.  I guess the market is just too small there.  I often forget that Italy is actually a huge country and one of the biggest in Europe.  Our population is more or less the same as that of France.  So we get a lot of the benefits of that. 

One of the more recent big country advantages I've realized when comparing to friends of mine who live in smaller European countries (Austria and the Netherlands) is that we're not as concerned as people in smaller countries about the difficulty of leaving our country to go on holiday this summer.  Austrian friend was kind of freaking about about having to stay in Austria this summer.  I guess it's all mountains there and she wanted something different.
 But here in Italy we have lots of places to go and varied landscapes so we're perfectly happy to stay here. 

I must go check to see if Zalando here has a second hand section.  Thanks for the tip.

draco44

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 527
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2021, 03:29:20 PM »
It makes me happy to know this exists. Saving money and the environment in one go? Fantastic.

I used to live near a burrito place that in the early afternoon would give away any extra burritos from their lunch rush if you knew to ask. Mostly they made to order from bulk ingredients, but extras from their daily stash of grab-and-go premade burritos they needed to get rid of before they got too soggy. They froze beautifully for later eating. It was fun feeling like your were in the know about their "secret," but formalizing things like with this app could probably increase the amount of food being saved. And hopefully let the restaurants recoup their ingredient costs.

gaja

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1681
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2021, 03:46:47 PM »
We have used it a few times over the last years. Sometimes the surprise pack is just ok, sometimes it is very good. The best was in the start of the pandemic when the local slaughters had to adapt and used tgtg to offload surplus. Those surprise cartons were fantastic: sausages, ground beef, cured meats, etc.

Several hotels are also part of tgtg in Norway, and will wrap up the leftovers from breakfast and other buffets. Those can be quite high value.

Hula Hoop

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1762
  • Location: Italy
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2021, 03:49:41 PM »
@gaja I found a FB group of people who rate the TGTG boxes in my region.  It's actually pretty useful for choosing the boxes.  Most people post photos and rate things like freshness.  The Indian restaurant I mentioned above gets great reviews whereas a health food store that I thought would be really good gets "meh" reviews.

Moonwaves

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1943
  • Location: Germany
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #7 on: May 06, 2021, 01:52:43 AM »
Thanks for mentioning this. I heard about it a while ago and had completely forgotten. Off to see if there's anything in my area.

jeninco

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3997
  • Location: .... duh?
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe and US
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2021, 07:16:07 PM »
Fascinating! In our US town, the "Food Rescue" group picks up food that's going to be thrown out from grocery stores, bakeries, and other places and delivers to people who can use it. The legwork (and it's mostly literally legwork, as they have a bunch of extra-burly bike trailers that people tow with their mountain bikes) is all done by volunteers. I do one shift/week, picking up food from a local bakery on Monday morning (so it's whatever didn't sell over the weekend) and dropping it at two retirement homes and a low-income-housing project.

Which reminds me -- I need to log this morning's trip!

Imanuels

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 57
  • Location: Germany
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe and US
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2021, 02:28:30 AM »
So cool, thanks for sharing! I just downloaded the app and will try it our here in Germany.

Moonwaves

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1943
  • Location: Germany
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe
« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2021, 03:06:23 AM »
Thanks for mentioning this. I heard about it a while ago and had completely forgotten. Off to see if there's anything in my area.
I signed up for this back at the start of May and yesterday picked up my first lucky dip bag. From a fancy chocolate place, no less.

€9.99 for a bag with a value of €29.99. There were four packets of various pralines/truffles, a bag of coffee beans and a bag of licorice. My boss took the coffee (I don't drink it), and he's making his way through the liquorice (yuck! - salty liquourice, double yuck!!) and the chocolates I don't like (i.e. anything with marzipan, coffee or alcohol in it), which I've set out in my office. And I still brought far more than ten euros worth home with me.

Overall, there doesn't seem to be a huge variety available in my area. If I had a car and could easily get to a few different places in town, there would be more. Still fun to check every now and then.

Dicey

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 22322
  • Age: 66
  • Location: NorCal
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe and US
« Reply #11 on: July 28, 2021, 08:04:56 PM »
Not in my immediate area yet, but I hope it will be coming here soon!

Imma

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3193
  • Location: Europe
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe and US
« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2021, 10:05:53 AM »
I've used Too Good To Go for years! My friends and I have compared notes on the best places in our town. It's helpful to reduce waste, it's a fun way to try new food and I've also gotten to know a few new local businesses. I have definitely visited a few restaurants as a regular customer after getting to know them through Too Good To Go.

My favourite box is from a sandwich shop on my way home from work. They close at 5.30 so you can pick up after 5 which is when I walk there anyway. The box only costs €4 and it usually includes a fresh juice or smoothie, a few sandwiches with random fillings (dinner) some bread or bread rolls (for breakfast/lunch) and some savoury or sweet treats. It's probably more expensive than rice, beans and oatmeal but it's very good value. The local bakery also offers boxes that are great value, I've seen people walk away with two large shopping bags full of whole breads, sausage rolls and cakes, but that's too much food for me. My freezer isn't even that big. But growing up my parents at one point had to feed 7 people every day, for families like that it's ideal.

In my experience especially bakeries tend to be very generous because they hate throwing away good bread that they baked in their own ovens. Restaurants can sometimes save food for the next day. Chain restaurants aren't as generous usually.

As for going abroad, as a person in a small country (the Netherlands) who grew up after Schengen, borders were always an imaginary thing for me. I'm half an hour away from Germany and Belgium, I have family and friends there. There are staples I buy specifically in one of those countries because they're cheaper/better there. It's been a surreal experience to have to *think* about crossing a border and going through the hurdles of looking up current Covid regulations. Borders have literally been closed for some time which is something we associate with war. Thankfully the weather has been terrible and I've not had time off this summer because the opportunities for domestic tourism are limited. Everyone in the whole country seemed to want to visit the same few places. I imagine a country like Italy has many more opportunities for domestic tourism as you guys have likely received less foreign tourists. I think the only place that's great to visit now is Amsterdam. In Covid times there are few British stag parties and other visitors mainly there for alcohol and drugs. The museums are full of Dutch people now instead of Asian tourists but I'm pretty sure the hotels are empty and you can get a great deal. Dutch people don't go to Amsterdam, they prefer the beach.

Christof

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 717
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Germany
Re: Too Good to Go - anti-food waste app available in Europe and US
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2021, 10:33:55 AM »
Our neighboorhood restaurant is also on too good to go. Talked to the owner some time ago (pre covid). He told me he doesn‘t have unused food in the kitchen. Instead he is making a fresh meal when someone orders a box, because he wants to support the idea and help someone who might not be able to afford restaurants otherwise.