3,5 years after saving its first meal in Copenhagen, the company Too Good To Go has now saved 29 million meals and avoided the equivalent of more than 72,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of 15,000 vehicles driven for one year. Through a community of 18 million users called “waste warriors,” the company is managing to save one meal per second and is continuing to expand year after year.
Source: Too Good To Go
The goal was to generate revenue from food that would have otherwise been wasted by creating a system where food surplus from restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, and bakeries is sold at a lower price. By doing so, the company effectively acts on around 17% of the total food waste in Europe by providing beneficial solutions at the food service, wholesale and retail levels.
How did it all begin?
Founded in 2015, Too Good To Go saved its first meal in Copenhagen in March 2016. The initial idea of the founders was to focus on food that became waste at the end of buffets. Whilst developing this concept, they quickly realized that it could be extended to all kinds of food service providers such as restaurants and cafes, bakeries, and hotels. The vision behind Too Good To Go has remained the same since the beginning: fighting food waste by inspiring and empowering everyone to fight food waste together.
Now, after four years, its success can be measured in having moved from one city to 14 countries, 29 million meals being saved through the mobile application, and its more than 18 million users.
Source: Team in Switzerland, Too Good To Go
About the company
The company is still headquartered where it all began, in Copenhagen, with local offices in 14 countries now. Sweden became the most recent country to join in January 2020. Although it is present in many countries, Too Good To Go remains one entity, with everything gathered under one global holding. The company generates revenue from two main streams, the business partners active on the platform:
1. Pay a yearly subscription to Too Good To Go
2. Pay a small commission fee to Too Good To Go for each meal sold
Source: Too Good To Go
What does it do?
Too Good To Go’s primary goal is to fight the growing issue of food waste. To do so, it provides a solution for food service providers to sell their food surplus which otherwise would have been wasted at the end of the business day.
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The Business to Consumer (B2C) Platform
After four years, Too Good To Go is now the world’s largest Business To Consumer Platform aiming to fight food waste. This is via a mobile app where businesses can add the food surplus they have, and consumers can view the offer available.
The Movement Against Food Waste The company’s overall vision is “a planet with no food waste”. To achieve this, it is actively empowering and inspiring everyone to fight food waste together by building a movement comprised of four pillars.
- 1st Pillar: It specifically targets households by providing educational messages with tips and tricks that can reduce food waste on a daily basis by better buying, storing, and cooking.
- 2nd Pillar: It targets businesses to address food waste and losses happening further upstream in the food value chain. It contains plans to improve the sustainability agenda of the 38,000 business partners the company already works with.
- 3rd Pillar: It focuses on schools, targeting younger generations with the creation of educational toolkits that contain exercises and guides for teachers.
- 4th Pillar: It focuses on public affairs. The company wants to engage with policy-makers to make sure the right regulatory framework is adopted to reduce food waste and enable change to make food systems more sustainable.
Source: Too Good To Go
What’s next?
The company’s goal is to continue developing the app and extend its outreach to other countries. But looking beyond that, Too Good To Go also has the ambition to tackle food waste all along the supply chain with the Movement Against Food Waste. With this, the company intends to change the regulatory framework to enable food waste prevention measures at the national level and within food manufacturers. The company has already started working at the national level in Switzerland, France, Germany, and Denmark, where campaigns and petitions were launched to change the “use by” labels, the misconception of which account for 10% of food wasted across the whole supply chain. The company also wants to develop an advocacy strategy at the European level.
Source: Too Good To Go
If you want to learn more about food waste, check out my last blog post:
