Next week, Ohio will officially launch an app designed to reduce food waste in local restaurants.
“We connect companies that sell food directly with consumers,” said Sarah Soteroff, spokeswoman for Too Good To Go.
Customers can use the app to purchase discounted surprise bags containing edible leftover food.
Soteroff said that by selling food they would otherwise have thrown away, businesses would earn some extra money, customers would get a discount and everyone would be doing their part to reduce the impact of food waste on the environment.
She said this was important because food waste “contributes enormously to greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.”
In Central Ohio, the Central Ohio Solid Waste Authority reports that the Franklin County Landfill is the most common place to dump food. The landfill receives about one million pounds of food waste daily.
“For us, it’s like the waste is being balanced and someone is consuming it.”
– Joel Cosme, Jr., co-owner of Community Grounds Coffee & Meeting House
Soteroff said more than 100 restaurants and grocery stores across the state have already joined the Too Good To Go app. Some restaurants in Columbus have already been using the app for a few weeks.
Community Grounds Coffee & Meeting House began using the app last month, according to co-owner Joel Cosme, Jr.
“At the end of the day, if there’s coffee left over that’s room temperature but still tastes good, we can get it for about 50% of the price,” Cosme said. “For us, that offsets the waste and someone consumes it.”
He said people reserved food bags on the first and second days he used the app.
“The excitement when you see what you have is almost incomparable.”
– Sarah Soteroff, spokesperson for Too Good To Go
On Thursday night, the app showed $4.99 goodie bags from Kung Fu Tea, Borgata Pizza Café and Pastaria in North Market, as well as a $3.99 bag from Yonder Beignets & Coffee.
On Friday afternoon, Ray Ray’s Hog Pit offered a “fresh baked bread surprise” for $3.99.
Customers request luggage in the app and then pick it up at a specific time.
“Food waste is really unpredictable. That’s why we have this surprise bag element,” Soteroff said.
She said that while not knowing exactly what you’re getting can seem daunting at first, it’s often the most popular part of the app for customers.
“The excitement of seeing what you have is almost unparalleled,” Soteroff said.
Too Good To Go reports that this has saved more than 330 million meals.
According to Too Good To Go, the app has 95 million registered users worldwide and around 160,000 business partners.
The company was founded in Copenhagen in 2015 with the goal of reducing waste in buffet restaurants. The app was launched in Denmark a year later and then spread to Norway, the UK and France.
It is now available in about 18 countries and about 25 US states.
