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"Too Good To Go", Danish company that helps prevent food waste and save money on food at the same time (www.toogoodtogo.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been using their app for some time now and really like the concept: Basically it allows restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets etc to announce when they have stuff leftover that they'd usually throw away at the end of the day. You can browse those nearby shops in the app and reserve a "surprise bag" for a small amount, usually around a third of the regular price, but it varies. In the pickup timeframe (usally around 30-60min before their closing time) you go there, show that you've reserved the bag in your app, confirm that you've received it and happily walk home with a ton of surprise food for super cheap.

After using it for a while I can especially recommend looking for food stalls at farmers markets as they often have lots of stuff leftover that they don't want to take back home when packing up so they're often super generous. Bakeries are also great, I regularly get a week's supply of bread, buns, pastries and cake for like 3-5€.

EDIT: While it's made in Denmark the app works globally or at least all of EuropeAFAIK, definitely works fine with lots of participating shops in Germany.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I tried this app and while I love the concept I think the implementation is trash.

My biggest complaint when I tried it was that you couldn't specify dietary restrictions, like there's not even a simple vegetarian option which would be so easy for many restaurants to accommodate. This app might be ok if you're happy eating any slop the restaurant can't sell that day, but if you have literally any preference then too bad.

Then there's also the issue of some restaurants that intentionally make extra food so they can sell it on the app. I don't have a solution to this one, but it's a problem that needs to be addressed if the point of the app is to reduce food waste.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Don't know if this is new but I just checked and you can set your diet preferences in the account settings.

I hardly believe restaurants prepare extra food in advance just to sell it a huge discount with very little or no profit. Actually whenever I went to a restaurant that participated it wasn't leftover stuff but they cooked the meal fresh just for me. I guess they're using the app as a way to advertise and draw more people in with a big discount and hope they come back again to eat there at the full price.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Glad to hear they added that feature! I downloaded it again and I'm going to give it another try.

If you've purchased food through the app from restaurants that cook your meal fresh, doesn't that go against the point of the app which is to reduce food waste by purchasing food that would otherwise be thrown out? Maybe cooking the food fresh for Too Good To Go customers isn't quite as bad as restaurants that prepare extra food in advance just to sell on the app (and end up throwing away much of it), but they're still using the app as another way to sell food without any regard to reducing food waste. If the goal is to reduce food waste then they shouldn't be preparing anything extra for users of the app.

[–] Srootus 7 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

From my own experience, it's down to the restaurant / shop to offer a vegetarian option, TGTG doesnt tell the restaurant what to offer, so maybe see if you can get your favorite places to offer a vegetarian / vegan / etc bag. A grocery store in my area offer a vegan breakfast almost every day. As for what TGTG should do, maybe they could add filters and tags so you can filter out your preferences. That would be cool.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Vegan breakfast option sounds so nice! When I tried it there weren't any participating vegetarian or vegan restaurants in my city of 3 million people. Restaurants would have listings on the app that were for example, "You'll get a large box of random food that might be fries, grilled chicken, salad, soup of the day or any mix of those!"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 19 hours ago

There is a filter in the settings for vegan/vegetarian. In my experience the shops/restaurants always asked me if I eat meat/fish when filling the bag, but I also live in a very hipster area where it feels like majority of people is vegan now, might be different elsewhere. :)