Win Win

Too Good To Go app prevents food waste and produces bargains

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK C. ANDERSON

Why didn’t this exist already?

That’s a common reaction to one of the area’s newest smartphone apps, Too Good To Go.

It’s an understandable response. The bargains it brings are potent (note the huge bag of donuts for $5, or chicken teriyaki with sides also for $5) and the bigpicture implications are profound (less food waste and more community connectivity). On top of that, a suspenseful element might be the tastiest part of the whole thing (more on that in a minute).Too Good To Go’s North American spokesperson Sarah Soteroff is familiar with the feedback.

“People think we’re trying to hoodwink them,” she says. “They ask, ‘What’s the catch?’”

Founded in Denmark in 2016, the idea behind the app is elegantly simple: You download it, check out which restaurants are offering their day’s surplus food in “surprise bags” and tap to reserve one before they sell out. TGTG makes its margin by charging participating restaurants a modest fee per order.

While the idea is simple, TGTG’s ambitions are not. As “food waste warriors,” the app’s founders have developed a framework and curriculum for schools and government policymakers.

A section on their website dedicated to educating consumers says more than one third of food goes to waste, and quotes climate change expert Chad Frischmann, “Reducing food waste is one of the most important things we can do to reverse global warming.”

In practice, potential food waste is served up with fun: “Beyond knowing the gist of what your order contains (for instance, muffins and pastries, or sandwiches and salads),” TGTG’s profile reads, “The contents remain a delicious surprise until pickup time.”

According to Soteroff, that suspense grows on users. “People are skeptical of the surprise element at first, but the next thing you know, they can’t wait to open their bags,” she says. “A lot of our Instagram content is people posting how excited they get for the reveal.”

Participating restaurants are encouraged to provide around three times the value for what they charge (typically around $5–$6), and my experiences bore that out.

My first experience with TGTG’s app was in Berkeley, which offers a lot more choices than Santa Cruz or Monterey. The radius I set was for five miles, and I was particularly stoked to see my favorite pasta place on the roster.

“People are skeptical of the surprise element at first, but the next thing you know, they can’t wait to open their bags.”

I biked over to The Phoenix Pastificio when my designated pickup time arrived (those vary according to each place), and showed I had reserved a bag on my phone. A moment later a staffer was handing me a huge bag of pasta triangles—ravioli scraps, perhaps?—made that day.

I left with enough fresh spinach-, sweet pea- and roasted bell pepper-flavored noodles to make dinner for two, share an equal amount with neighbors and still have half of the bag left over to freeze, all for $5.

The late poet, novelist and composer Boris Pasternak once said, “Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.” He must have been smiling. I know I was. I was also hooked.

Around Monterey Bay, which is a newer market, the roster of participating restaurants is small but mighty—and includes Rock N Roll Donuts, Venus Pie Trap and Lafayette Bakery. Adding enough partners in new markets is a priority, because a diversity of options helps bring customers back.

My opening expedition here took me to East Village Cafe in Monterey. As owner-operator Ryan Lama filled a box with plunder—an almond croissant, berry scone, cinnamon roll, blueberry crumble muffin and a frosted flake pastry—he told me he’s proud to be an early adopter. He also added his Too Good users are mostly visitors from out of the area, but he expects that to change.

“The main thing is that the food doesn’t go to waste, but you also get to share what you do and the surprise aspect is fun,” he says. “People love it, and they get a good deal.”

Enthusiastic restaurant participation is absolutely key to TGTG’s model. Shop owners are so proactive in their promotion, in fact, that TGTG has yet to invest in advertising.

Next up: Rock N Roll Donut Bar on Cannery Row. I got lucky with parking and was suddenly armed with pink sprinkled donuts, an Oreo donut, a maple bar and a strawberry cream dream (also $5). For the second time in as many nights, I arrived at a dinner gathering with treats for the whole household.

A night later I headed for Poke House, a locally owned micro chain which has participating outposts in Santa Cruz and Monterey. At its Del Monte Center location, a staffer handed me two bulbous bags brimming with salmon heads and bones thick with sushi-grade fish ($5 a bag).

The smiling attendant took my request for recipe coaching earnestly, rattling off suggestions ranging from ramen to onigiri. Back home came another discovery: Making a fish stock from scratch (my first) is doable and delightful.

I made a mental note to return and try Poke House’s custom crab-and-tuna bowl. That’s a benefit Soteroff observes: She says TGTG’s research finds around 75 percent of customers say they’ll return to a participating restaurant and pay full price.

That was the case on the Santa Cruz side of the bay too. At Pono Hawaiian Grill, general manager Brittny Beshore told me that TGTG has been a boon at all three Pono locations. “The program is awesome,” she says. “Everybody seems to be happy with the amount of food and the quality.”

As I accepted my bag of teriyaki chicken, macaroni salad, seasoned rice and kimchi—$5 in all—I couldn’t have agreed more.

Across town at Ferrell’s Donuts (which like Pono has multiple participating branches), I was allowed to take 16 pastries of my choosing because manager Cindy Starr hadn’t prepped the order yet.

“The app brings in people who wouldn’t normally come here,” she says. “Reducing waste is satisfying, but so is gaining a new audience.”

There are, of course, the inevitable growing pains when it comes to app features. Currently, there’s no way to communicate with restaurant staff who aren’t managing the app so they know who’s coming and don’t close early when a customer’s en route. It’s not always easy or convenient for people to peel away from work to pick up a bag. Bakeries, bagels and donuts tend to be over-represented. But those are all minor and manageable hiccups.

The key takeaway is this: TGTG’s simple formula is helping restaurants and bakeries resolve a complex issue. Like a giant surprise bag, the overall Too Good To Go experience comes loaded with revelations.