An app that looks to reduce food waste at local restaurants officially launches in Ohio next week.
“What we do is we connect businesses who have food directly to consumers,” said Too Good To Go spokeswoman Sarah Soteroff.
Customers use the app to buy reduced-price “Surprise Bags” of leftover food that's still edible.
Soteroff said businesses make a little extra money selling food that they would otherwise have thrown out, customers get a discount and everyone does their part to reduce the impact of food waste on the environment.
She said that’s important because food waste is a "huge contributor" to greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.
In central Ohio, the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio reports that food is the most common item at the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill. The landfill receives about one million pounds of food waste daily.
“For us it, like, balances the waste and somebody is consuming it."- Joel Cosme, Jr., co-owner of Community Grounds Coffee & Meeting House
Across the state, more than 100 restaurants and grocery stores have joined the Too Good To Go app, according to Soteroff. Some Columbus eateries have been using the app for a few weeks.
Community Grounds Coffee & Meeting House started using the app last month, according to co-owner Joel Cosme, Jr.
"If we have any leftover coffee at the end of the day, like, yeah, it's room temperature now, but it's still fine, then you can get that at like 50% of the cost,” Cosme said. "For us it, like, balances the waste and somebody is consuming it."
He said people reserved food bags on the first and second days he used the app.
“The excitement of seeing what you got is kind of unmatched.”- Sarah Soteroff, Too Good To Go spokesperson
On Thursday evening, the app displayed $4.99 Surprise Bags for Kung Fu Tea, Borgata Pizza Café, and Pastaria at the North Market, as well as a $3.99 bag from Yonder Beignets & Coffee.
Friday afternoon, a “fresh baked bread surprise” was available from Ray Ray’s Hog Pit for $3.99.
Customers claim bags in the app and then pick them up at a certain time.
“Food waste is really unpredictable. That’s why we have this Surprise Bag element,” Soteroff said.
She said while not knowing exactly what you’ll get may seem off-putting at first, it often becomes customers’ favorite part of using the app.
“The excitement of seeing what you got is kind of unmatched,” Soteroff said.
Too Good To Go reports it's saved more than 330 million meals.
The app has 95 million registered users around the world and about 160,000 business partners, according to Too Good To Go.
The company started in Copenhagen in 2015 with the goal of reducing waste at buffet restaurants. The app launched a year later in Denmark, then spread to Norway, the United Kingdom and France.
It’s now in about 18 countries and about 25 U.S. states.
