For the past For a few weeks, my fiancé and I made a habit of glancing at an app while walking the dog. No, it’s not Pokémon Gobut an app called Too good to go. Through the app, you can search for nearby restaurants, bakeries or grocery stores that may have merchandise that would otherwise turn into food waste at the end of the day (i.e. in a landfill).
These bags typically cost around $3 to $5, and they’re called Surprise Bags because you’re never sure exactly what you’re going to get. You might guess – a bakery will probably leave you with some pastries – but it’s the element of surprise that makes it fun and enjoyable. Sometimes you get gold for an amazing value — like $3 for 10 bagels, many of which are still in my freezer waiting to be baked for breakfast.
We got bags full of pastries for a fraction of what we normally pay; Chocolate bars of all sizes and other snacks for whenever hunger strikes, a plate of falafel, burritos and a few slices of pizza. Not every Surprise Bag is a winner — one day we were left with plain rice and a tiny piece of grilled chicken amid simple hamburgers. From a local Thai grocer, we received three jars of turmeric in a couple of Surprise Bags (my mom would be happy).
But it’s hard to complain. Rarely do I talk about a product with friends and family, but I actually mentioned Too Good To Go to anyone who would listen (I heard about it through word of mouth from a friend). It just feels — pardon the pun — too good to be true.
Fight food waste
If something sounds too good to be true, it is usually. But in this case, I don’t need to prepare for the worst. Mike von Massow, a professor at the University of Guelph who studies food waste, said Too Good To Go was a “really great idea”.
Food waste is a develop problem. ONE Report 2021 from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) notes that about “2.5 billion tons of food is consumed around the world each year,” or about 40% of all food grown. Because food waste is often not segregated from other waste streams, it is difficult to measure, but much of it ends up in a landfill which produces methane emissions that contribute to climate change. Worse still, about 70% of biodiversity loss is due to agriculture. Commercial food production is inefficient.
The amount of food that an individual restaurant churns out is usually small, but when you count all the restaurants in the United States, it increases. Massow notes that the Too Good To Go app also saves restaurants time and money, as they don’t need to list exactly what customers will get. It was a surprise! There’s no need to worry about food distribution, as everyone gets their own. And if a restaurant puts out tons of Surprise Bags, it might even make them question why they made so many surpluses.
