- cross-posted to:
- frugal
- cross-posted to:
- frugal
Too good to go is a service that started in Denmark in 2015, and has since spread to more countries. Its concept is to reduce food waste from unsold surplus in the stores, and instead help the stores sell the produce to frugal/thrifty people at a heavy discount, pretty much in “surprise” bags.
According to Wikipedia it is available in mainly Europe and North America:
As of July 2023 the company Web site covered Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
I’ve seen this around in Sweden from the last year, but there are other similar services here as well, so I haven’t used Too good to go yet (but I intend to do soon). I’ve used Matsmart a couple of times which allows me to pick the products I want, and sometimes bought Lidl’s discounted fruit-and-veg bags (“Ta vara på”) in the store.
I think the concept is really good on a consumer level, even though I can’t say for sure just how much impact it has on reducing surplus or if it’s just another green washing method for the affiliated companies.
I have been using TGTG for over a year (bought over 200 bags). It is a great way to save some money and try new things. The quality and quantity usually differ depending on what company you buy from. There are in general two kinds of companies, Supermarkets and restaurants:
Supermarkets are the most unpredictable, You will usually get many different things that are about to expire. In my experience, they are usually really good deals (20+€ worth of food for 5€). However, its essentially all stuff that didn’t get sold you usually need to buy a bunch of extra stuff to really make full meals, and there might be some stuff you don’t like/eat.
The other big category is restaurants/hotels. Here you will usually get between 1 and 2 meals for 5 or 6 euros. Here I essentially try every new one a couple of times and if I like the food will get a TGTG bag from them regularly. Here the big downside is that they might not have any food to give away, whereas supermarkets essentially always have stuff they have to throw away, restaurants might run out and cancel your order (or just not have anything when you arrive). You will of course get your money refunded, but now you need to still find food, at a time when most restaurants have/are about to close. And ofcourse, depending on how picky of an eater you are you might get something you don’t like.
The last big problem is that the really good deals sell out incredibly quickly. I know one restaurant that has really good pasta and lasagnas that sells between 5 and 10 TGTG bags per day but always sells out within 60 seconds. So it is sometimes not really feasible to get a bag from the best places.
However, once you know your local market and what bags to get (and which ones aren’t worth it). It is an absolutely fantastic way to both save money and eat good food. I regularly get food from restaurants that I would normally only go to on special occasions. And would recommend anyone to install the app and try it out!
That’s a really good input and info, thank you. I must admit, I hadn’t thought about ordering restaurant food through TGTG, just from the stores. This is because we mainly eat home cooked meals, and I have kind of been focused on grocery stores. It’s helpful to read about how other people use these services.