Too Good To Go
Too Good To Go is a food-waste reduction platform that allows businesses to sell surplus food to consumers at discounted prices. This company is turning potential food waste into a source of revenue for both the company and the businesses while reducing environmental waste.
The benefits they are promoting range from half-priced foods, environmental aid, food waste minimization, and trying new things from local businesses (Too Good, 2024).
The app offers a variety of products and services, including “Surprise Bags” for food retail, food service, and catering; date-labeling solutions for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods, wholesale, and retail; and software that helps grocery retailers manage surplus food.
Sell your unsold food in 'Surprise Bags' through the Too Good To Go app, for users to come collect in-store at a pre-determined time (Too Good, 2024).
Surprise Bags are sold at 50-75% of their contents' original retail value. You unlock revenue from unsold food and welcome customers into your store, customers save money, and together we help save the planet; Win-Win-Win. Almost no more than it takes to throw food away! (Too Good, 2024)
All that is required of you is to set aside your surplus food to be picked up by a customer. Then, at the collection time, the customer shows their digital receipt and you hand over the food (Too Good, 2024).
"Redistributing surplus food is one of the smartest ways to solve an incredibly wasteful problem" -Too Good To Go CEO, Mette Lykke.
I’m interested in exploring the use of existing businesses and infrastructure within rural communities, particularly how underutilized resources could be given greater value. This could create opportunities to deliver healthcare services at a lower cost while still providing rural communities with greater access to care.
Household food waste remains one of the biggest drivers of food waste globally, with 631 million tonnes (696 million US tons) of food waste occurring at households (UNEP, 2024).
20% of the United States' food waste is due to consumers' misunderstanding of date labels (Too Good, 2024).
To clarify the difference between the two most common labels: Use By dates relate to food safety. After this date, food may no longer be safe to eat and should be consumed or frozen by the date shown. Fighting food waste takes more than technology alone. Best Before dates relate to food quality, not safety. They indicate how long a product is expected to stay at its best. Many foods are still perfectly good to eat after this date (Too Good, 2024).
Look-Smell-Taste Initiative: Educating households that a product past its Best Before date could still be good to eat. Today, more than 7 billion product packages display the Too Good To Go Look-Smell-Taste label (Too Good, 2024).
Their date-labeling initiative could also provide an interesting avenue to explore, as it addresses consumer misunderstandings about expiration dates and educates people on how to use their senses to determine whether food is still safe to eat. A similar approach could be applied to healthcare at home by educating people about how to recognize and manage minor health concerns and, importantly, when professional care is necessary. This could potentially reduce unnecessary 911 calls for non-emergency situations and help preserve limited emergency resources in rural communities, where response times and access to care can already be challenging.
References:
Too Good To Go. (2024). Save food - help the planet. Www.Toogoodtogo.Com. https://www.toogoodtogo.com/en-us
United Nations Environment Programme (2024). Food Waste Index Report 2024: Think Eat Save: Tracking Progress to Halve Global Food Waste. UNEP. Retrieved June 2026 from https://wedocs.unep.org/items/dbe2cd4c-8384-4636-83595847f42b9711
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