Fighting the Good Fight with Too Good To Go

Food wastage is a tremendous challenge and requires our urgent attention now, even more than ever. A substantial amount of food sees the bin every day because it goes unsold from grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, and other eatery joints.

Too Good To Go is a free app founded in 2016 to combat the global challenge of food wastage. The App has an interactive and simple interface where the users are provided a platform to purchase the extra unsold food items for eateries that are a part of the initiative. You would not know the exact contents of the bag unless you pick up the order, but the food you receive is at a considerably low rate for quality food from trusted places. This way, you are not just rescuing a great food bag and enjoying a wonderful meal but also helping the environment.

In an exclusive interview with Jamie Crummie, the Co-Founder and Director of Too Good To Go, spoke about the remarkable journey of the app and its objects of minimising food wastage. Jamie is a human rights lawyer who worked several years with Amnesty International before founding the app. He is an LLB graduate from the University of Leeds and holds LLM from QMUL, UK. 

Too Good To Go has had an inspiring vision since the conception of this start-up in 2015. To say it has come a long way would be an understatement. What was the motivation behind this initiative, and how has its sustainability goals evolved over the years?

“In my previous career in Human Rights Law, I spent some time with Amnesty International. It was there that I became aware of the issue of food waste when I was at an event in 2013 that was purely catered for with food which would otherwise have been thrown away. I realised that there must be a simpler and more accessible way to fight food waste than dumpster diving, which led me to explore the impact technology could have. While coming up with a solution, I connected with like-minded entrepreneurs in Copenhagen and we worked together to create Too Good To Go.

Through the app, food businesses can recover sunk costs, meet new customers and reduce their environmental impact, while consumers can buy and eat great food, all in the knowledge that they’ve prevented it from going to waste and harmful emissions being produced.

Alongside our app we are also driving what we call a food waste fighting movement. Here we’re looking to inspire and empower households, schools, businesses and governments to build a planet-friendly food system where food is eaten and enjoyed rather than wasted.

Since launching in 2016, we’ve now grown an international community across 15 countries in Europe and the US. We currently have 40 million users fighting food waste with us, and 5.6 million of those are in the UK - and these numbers are growing every day!”

Globally, Too Good To Go has over 100,000 businesses on board with it in this fight against food wastage. What are some challenges it faces in the day-to-day functions of fulfilling your targeted sustainability goals?

“When first setting up Too Good To Go, scaling was definitely a challenge for us. We’re now in 15 countries and have learnt a lot over the course of the last 5 years when entering new markets - most recently the USA. The challenge with fast growth is making sure that we always keep in touch with our culture and don’t lose sight of our purpose. We’ve worked hard to instill this in the core of our company and I’m proud that we now have nearly 1,000 waste warrior employees across the world who are as passionate as I am about driving forward change. We also now have a dedicated expansion team who have taken all our learnings to create an expansion process.

A big challenge we also face is awareness. We need to help businesses buy into the food waste problem and not see it as an inevitable side effect of running a business. It’s also important to help people understand that even just one pastry being thrown away is having an impact and that we all can play a role in tackling climate change with small, individual changes. The solution to this is education. That’s why we have the movement side to our business where we work with public affairs, schools and households to help raise awareness on the issue of food waste and show people how easy it is to make a difference.”

Your knowledge hub mentioned that around 40% of food wastage is in developing countries. How do you plan to tackle the challenge? Do you have any plans to expand the initiative to more developing nations?

“For us it’s all about fighting food waste, so the more food we can prevent from going to waste the better. Right now, we have an ambitious expansion plan mapped out for the foreseeable future which focuses on becoming more of a presence in North America and Europe first, but expanding further afield is something we’re always looking at.

Our business model is deliberately designed to be easy to replicate across markets, and we know we can expand across territories with very little variance so the opportunity is there to scale quickly.

Our overall vision is for a planet with no food waste and this will take a worldwide operation - that means that wherever there is surplus food, we’re ready to help save it from going to waste. We’re constantly looking at how we can increase our impact and expand to new markets; the only barriers we see are time and capacity.”

While food wastage is a known talk of the town; people usually feel there is not much they can do on an individual level to curb. Would you be able to share some tips for our readers to reduce food wastage at a local level?

“Every single action taken, no matter how big or small, adds up to make a big difference, especially when it comes to tackling climate change. That’s why fighting food waste can be so powerful because we can all do something that reduces it to have a positive impact on the planet.

One of the easiest ways to cut down on food waste is simply to buy what you need and eat what you buy. Making sure that you’ve made the most out of your ingredients from your supermarket shop is a really easy way of reducing food waste and it can be fun to get creative in the kitchen! Embrace the chance to explore new ways of working with ingredients. Why not have a go at making a broccoli pesto using the broccoli stalks that you’d usually throw away, or keeping the peel on your potatoes when you’re mashing them? Little changes like these really can make all the difference. ”

What are some key features that make Too Good To Go an unique initiative against food wastage?

“The Too Good To Go app is the food waste fighting tool that everyone can carry around in their pocket. We wanted to create a solution that is both simple for our partners and simple for users, while making fighting food waste a fun experience too.

One particular USP is our Magic Bag concept. The Magic Bag concept was designed to be as flexible a tool as possible for our partner stores. Food waste is inherently unpredictable, so the Magic Bag allows our partners to fill it with whatever they have left rather than planning contents in advance. And they can increase or decrease the number of Magic Bags on any given day through an easy-to-use partner interface.

The store profile on our app provides indication to our users as to the type of food they can expect, but other than that, it’s a surprise! For example, you know when you buy a Magic Bag from Lola’s Cupcakes that you will receive an assortment of cupcakes that haven’t sold that day. Whereas a Magic Bag from a grocery store could include a wide variety of produce, from fresh fruit and veg to deli and bakery items.

Our users love the element of discovery that comes with rescuing a Magic Bag with us and feedback shows that they often get to try food that they ordinarily wouldn’t choose themselves.”

For our readers who are not well aware, how would you explain food sustainability? Why do you think it is so important?

“A third of all food that’s produced around the world is wasted every year.

That’s a staggering fact and one that often goes under the radar. Not only is this a shocking figure when you take into account the issues of food insecurity and poverty we have around the world, but this wasted food is having a major impact on our planet too.

Food waste contributes to 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions - that’s 2% more than the aviation industry. In fact, a recent report from Project Drawdown declared fighting food waste the single most effective action we can take against climate change.

At Too Good To Go we’re seeking to impact waste across the entire food system from production to consumption.”

By Prerna Deep